UNDER 
MARCHING ORDERS 




ETHEL DANIELS HUBBARD 




Glass"~g>\ / ^4a f / 
Book. . &$tj r l 
Copyright^ 



COPVRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




Maky Pouter Game well 



FORWARD MISSION STUDY COURSES 

Edited under the Direction of 
The Young People's Missionary Movement 



Under Marching Orders 

A Story of Mary Porter Gamewell 



ETHEL DANIELS HUBBARD 



NEW YORK 

YOUNG PEOPLE'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

OF THE UNITeB OTATES^AND CANADA 

1909 



&3 



fc1 



Copyright, 1909, by 

Young People's Missionary Movement 

op the United States and Canada 



'''aug¥ W 3 



TO THE CHINESE GIRLS 

STUDENTS IN 

THE MARY PORTER GAMEWELL SCHOOL 

IN PEKING 

WHO LEARN THERE THE IDEAL OF 

CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD 

AND WHO PURPOSE TO WORK IT OUT 

IN DAILY LIVING 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 



in 



CONTENTS 

Chapter page 

Preface ix 

I Into a Walled City 1 

II A Girl in the Making 17 

III Bound or Unbound? 31 

IV In a Peking Cart 49 

V The Turning of the Road 67 

VI A Chinese Mob 81 

VII A Chinese Sunday School and a Chinese 

Church 99 

VIII The Center of the Chinese Puzzle Ill 

IX Boxers and Barricades 131 

X Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 153 

XI The Coming of the Allies 173 

XII A New World 193 

Index 213 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Mary Porter Game well Frontispiece 

J Typical Chinese Donkey with Driver Page 5 

Mary Porter's Journey from San Francisco 

to Peking " 7 

Map Showing Location of Tientsin and Peking. " 9 

Outer Wall of Peking " 13 

Hata Gate " 13 

\ Mary Porter at Twelve Years of Age " 21 

The House in the Square, Davenport, Iowa. . " 29 

Old Prison Hospital, Arsenal Island " • . 29 

Mrs. Wang on Wheelbarrow " 41 

' Peking Carts on Rough Roads " 53 

River Ferry " 53 

Journey from Peking to An-chia-chuang " 61 

4 Frank D. Gamewell and Mary Porter at the 

Time of Marriage " 73 

Trackers on the Yang-tzu " 77 

Sedan-chair " 93 

Mrs. Gamewell and Chinese Bible Women " 103 

\Asbury Church, Peking, before the Boxer 

Uprising " 109 

Peking, a City within a City " 115 

Empress Dowager " 123 

A Boxer " 127 

Boxer Placard used to Incite Feeling against 

Foreigners " 127 

Scenes in the Methodist Compound " 135 

Barbed Wire in Front of Asbury Church — Captain Hall 
and the Key — The Auditorium as a Storehouse — On 
Guard 

Diagram, Line of March from the Methodist 

Compound to the British Legation " 149 

Turning into Legation Street from Hata Men 

reet « 151 



Vlll 



Illustrations 



j 



, 



k British Legation, Peking 

I Gate to British Legation, Showing Fortifica- 
tion and Dry Canal 

I Dr. Game well and Fortification Staff 

• Sand-bag Fortification 

Ruins of the Hanlin Library 

Chinese Watching a Fire in the British Le- 
gation 

International Gun, "Betsey" 

'House in British Legation, Showing Bombard- 
ment by Chinese 

Last Message from Dr. Gamewell before the 

Siege 

First News of the Relief 

Joy at the Coming of the Allies 

The Mary Porter Gamewell School for Girls, 

Peking 

Girls of the Mary Porter Gamewell School 



Page 157 

157 
169 
169 
177 

177 

181 

181 

185 
185 
189 

207 
207 



PREFACE 

To Girls and Boys Who Honor Their Flag 

This morning there was a patriotic service 
in the town where I live, at which hundreds 
of children sang and waved their flags. As 
they were singing a flag song, I wished that 
they would cheer the old dragon flag of China, 
and more than all the flags of all the nations, 
would I have them cheer the Church flag, 
which bears the sign of the cross. 

If, as a good citizen, you would follow your 
country's flag to the ends of the earth, if 
honor called you, would you not just as 
promptly follow the Christian flag anywhere 
it might lead? If you follow a flag, you put 
yourself " under marching orders," and 
where the commander says go, the soldier 
directs his steps. 

There is in this book the story of a girl 
who loved the stars and stripes and loved 
them as long as she lived, even though she 
spent more than half her days under the 
national standard of China, and came to re- 



x Preface 

spect the coils of the dragon on its yellow 
field. But the flag of the cross was hoisted 
above the stars and stripes on the battleship 
of her life. Do you care to know how she 
followed the flag, and what adventures she 
met on the way? If so, you may like to read 
this narrative and become acquainted with a 
fellow soldier. Because she was an honorable 
soldier, who came through the fight with 
her colors flying, I have written her life for 
you to read. 

But before you pass beyond this page, will 
you help me pay respects to some of the men 
and women without whom I could not have 
written this book? By and by, as you read 
the last chapters, you yourselves will feel like 
saluting the man who, as much as any other, 
helped to save the lives of hundreds of 
foreigners and thousands of Chinese in the 
siege of Peking. He was the husband of 
Mary Porter Gamewell, and it is because he 
was willing to answer questions and lend 
diaries and scrap-books, that the material for 
this story could be gathered. A sister of 
Mary Porter Gamewell, Mrs. Charles D. 
Glass, told me stories for a whole day, and 
some of these stories you will find as you 



Preface xi 

read. Then there were three people, two of 
whom were in China with Mary Porter Game- 
well, and they drew from their memories and 
gave me incidents which are woven into the 
text of the book. The names of these are: 
Miss Clara M. Cushman, Mrs. Miranda 
Croucher Packard, and Miss Elizabeth 
Northrup. I am also grateful to a former 
teacher of mine in Wellesley College, Miss 
Sophie Jewett, who kindly gave some sugges- 
tions relating to the language of my manu- 
script. And there is yet another, Mr. Ealph 
E. Diffendorfer, whom I am especially glad 
to have you know, because it was he who 
helped me to realize the interest that boys 
and girls have in tales of adventure and 
heroism. 

There are two books which were nearly al- 
ways on my desk as I wrote. Later on, if 
you should care to read again about Mary 
Porter Gamewell, or to learn all about the 
siege of Peking, I advise you to hunt up Dr. 
Tuttle's Life of Mary Porter Gamewell 
and two bulky red volumes called China 
in Convulsion, written by Dr. Arthur H. 
Smith. 

And now turn the leaves and read, if you 



xii Preface 

will, the story of a girl who lived under three 
flags, and did honor to them all, because 
above her own life waved triumphantly the 
red and blue flag of the Christian Cross. 

Ethel Daniels Hubbard. 
Wellesley, Mass., May 31, 1909. 



INTO A WALLED CITY 



I 

INTO A WALLED CITY 

"Too low they build 
Who build beneath the stars." 

It was a twelve-mile ride and the donkeys ' 
moods and legs were uncertain. In the mind 
of the donkey there is no room for sympathy, 
but rather the grim humor which loves the 
practical joke for its own sake without mercy 
for the victim. The perverse animal stands 
by in mocking silence when his pranks have 
tortured his rider into despair. There is no 
sense of responsibility in his mental make-up. 

Thus at the outset of the ride, knowing the 
distance and the donkey, one knew not 
whether to laugh or cry. Then again there 
were memories that haunted, brought out by 
the contrast between the United States of 
America and China of the Far East. Con- 
sequently the five riders looked into one an- 
other's eyes, whenever there was equilibrium 
sufficient to look into anything, and ques- 
tioned. 

Meanwhile, the donkeys boldly demanded 



4 Under Marching Orders 

an undue share of attention, and their de- 
mand was met without hesitation. Riding 
astride one cantankerous little beast was an 
American girl. She was slender and wiry, 
and her blue eyes fairly shone with deter- 
mination to stick to the back of her donkey at 
all hazards. She had ridden frisky horses 
before this, and had never known fear. 
Should a humble Chinese donkey bring her 
to terms ! But despite her intention and her 
skill in horsemanship, the donkey had his 
way, as he always will, and many times she 
was compelled to alight hastily and inglo- 
riously on the ground. 

Her saddle was anything but American, 
Mexican, or comfortable. It was simply a 
stuffed pack of uncertain shape, with stir- 
rups which were hung on ropes across the 
pack, and which usually dangled just out of 
reach at the sides. It was a task worthy a 
professional acrobat to keep one 's balance on 
a Chinese saddle while riding over Chinese 
roads. These roads were paved with huge 
stones worn into ruts nearly a foot deep by 
the heavy wheelbarrows which had bumped 
and thumped over them for years — yes, for 
centuries. 







Q 
W 



o 
Q 
w 

125 



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Into a Walled City 5 

The face of the girl was alive with fun in 
the rare moments when the donkey gave her 
a chance to appreciate the experiences of her 
companions. A sudden exclamation from 
behind called her attention to a moving pic- 
ture of dramatic interest. The rider was 
trying to maintain a precarious position on 
the sloping back of his donkey, which was 
kicking out vigorously. Just then the driver, 
who walked by the side, threw himself over 
the flying heels of the beast and cast both 
arms about his body in the effort to hold him 
down to earth. By way of climax, our dig- 
nified escort was presently seen sailing out 
over the head of his donkey, umbrella in hand 
and opened wide, the donkey for the instant 
standing head down and heels in the air. 

Throughout, it was a close struggle between 
will of beast and will of man, and the girl had 
her full share of battle. In the end, the little 
gray beasts of China bore their unwonted 
burdens from the West, all, or nearly all, the 
twelve miles from T'ung-chou to Peking. At 
last, in the dusty shadows of the dusty wall 
of dusty Peking, the travelers dismounted the 
donkeys and mounted — the Peking carts ! 

The girl with the undaunted look in her 



6 Under Marching Orders 

eyes had traveled many a Chinese li, 1 many 
an ocean league, and many a good American 
mile since she left her home in Iowa six 
months before. In the country, in childhood, 
haven't yon often climbed the near-by hill 
eager to see what is just beyond? And 
haven't you found that there is always an- 
other "just beyond"? You would fain press 
on and on until you come to the very end of 
the earth, to that mysterious "jumping-off 
place" which, like the North Pole, is never 
found and perpetually sought. So it was 
with the girl. There was a voice in her ears 
which said, "Come," and there was some- 
thing deep down in her soul which said, 
"Go." The soul of man must be made for 
movement, for exploration, because it is sure 
to answer that summons to climb yet another 
hill and get the broader view. Thus the girl 
was lured out from the home town and out 
from the homeland across the sea to China. 
All told, it had been a wonderful journey. 
The girl's bright eyes and quick sense of fun 
had helped her to see and enjoy, as well as 
to make the best of trying situations. She 
was alive with interest when the ship an- 

i A li is about three eighths of a mile. 



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From Yokohama ^ ^ 
Honolulu ano & '' 
*%h^ s a n fr a n c i s co 

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Mary Porter's Journey from San Francisco to Peking 

7 



8 Under Marching Orders 

chored in Yokohama Bay. She had read the 
papers and kept pace with the times, and she 
knew that little Japan was making history 
fast. When they sailed through the lovely 
Inland Sea, she realized that Japan had 
beauty of nature on her side to help her men 
and women become true and strong and loyal 
to the empire. Eleven days later she landed 
in China, after the six solid weeks on ship- 
board. Even in those days Shanghai, the 
port, was a bustling city threatening to be- 
come a rival on the other side of the world to 
New York. The girl, however, could not and 
cared not to linger in Shanghai, for she was 
bound for the capital city of the empire — 
mighty, mysterious Peking. With character- 
istic eagerness she longed to be off and away 
on the journey north. 

In 1871 America did not know as much 
about China as she knows to-day, and there 
had been no one in the home country to tell 
the girl traveler that the last vessel sailed 
north from Shanghai before the cold of 
winter began. Peking is a good one hundred 
miles from the coast, and Tientsin is its port. 
But Tientsin lies on the west bank of the 
muddy Pei Ho (North River), some twenty- 




Map Showing Location of Tientsin and Peking 

Distance, Taku to Tientsin, 27 Miles 
Distance, Tientsin to Peking, 79 Miles 



Into a Walled City 9 

five miles from the sea, and the river freezes 
in cold weather. So, in the days before the 
railroad reached China, Peking was a goal 
not easily reached from the coast during the 
winter season. The girl learned cheerfully 
to accept the unexpected, and sailed away in 
the coast steamer to another city, Foochow, 
where she remained until the spring thaw 
opened navigation. 

There are some rough, tumbling waters 
between Shanghai and Tientsin, and the 
stoutest of travelers is usually brought low. 
Even nature in China has its streaks of per- 
versity. The ship anchors on the ocean side 
of the sandbar which blocks the entrance to 
the crooked Pei Ho. The wind is then likely 
to blow the water off the bar, until there is 
scarcely enough left to float an Indian canoe. 
The poor people at the mercy of the short, 
choppy waves think appreciatively of the 
"man who was so seasick that he feared he 
would die, and afterward was only afraid he 
would not die. ' } By and by, the captain, who 
is a man of action, can brook delay no longer, 
and over the bar the steamer goes, scraping 
and grinding through the sands like a plow 
through the stubborn soil of New England, 



10 Under Marching Orders 

In all these ways the girl was gathering ex- 
perience for her storehouse of wisdom. 

From Tientsin up to T'ung-chou, the end 
of navigation, the girl had her first expe- 
rience in a Chinese house-boat. She had 
often wondered what these strange craft 
were like, but she had never dreamed that 
there could be anywhere in one spot such 
a jam of boats and such a swarm of people. 
What yelling and pushing and shouting 
there was before they escaped from the 
wedge of boats! At last the wind filled 
the sails and they were off. At night they 
tied to the bank, and sailed away in the gray 
light of morning. 

The river bed is in some places higher 
than the surrounding country, and when the 
floods come of course the water breaks 
through the banks, which are not firm and 
strong and high like the Holland dikes. It 
gives the house-boats a fine chance to keep 
to a straight course instead of following the 
twisting curves of the river. Any sensible 
captain would choose to send his ship in a 
straight line when possible. Sometimes they 
were carried over whole fields of kaoliang, 
or broom-corn, which stood at least ten feet 



Into a Walled City 11 

high. Little villages built on slightly higher 
land were veritable islands. It was a mirage 
experience, and the girl could hardly credit 
her senses. Chinese facts are often stranger 
than fairy tales, and nature seems to do her 
full part. 

Another Chinese puzzle was the famous 
pontoon bridge, or Bridge of Boats. How 
should they find a way through? It was 
easy, however, for a clumsy barge dropped 
out of its place in the line, and the waiting 
boats filed through this opening. The girl 
watched with interest the workings of this 
strange type of drawbridge and compared 
it with the government bridge which con- 
nected her own home town with the opposite 
shore of the broad Mississippi. The two 
bridges were another instance of the differ- 
ence between slow-moving, bulky China and 
wide-awake, alert America. 

She was just beginning to learn another 
lesson — a lesson taught by painful degrees 
in the days and years to come in China. To 
be willing to become a source of unfailing 
amusement to her fellow men was not such 
an easy task as one might think. Along the 
edges of the break in the bridge hovered a 



12 Under Marching Orders 

motley throng of foot-passengers. They ob- 
jected not at all to the delay in their journey, 
for what a rare chance to stare at the queer- 
looking foreigners in the house-boat! The 
girl decided that they looked upon the group 
of Americans in much the same mood as they 
would view a monkey show or an exhibition 
of performing bears. 

So, through experiences, some as new as 
the daylight, and others as old as the human 
race, the girl came toward the end of her 
journey. Out on the plains, on the back of 
the donkey, she had her first view of the wall 
of Peking. It seemed literally to reach to 
the sky, and to shut out everything — every- 
thing except the dust. She had read of the 
walled cities of the ancient world, but only 
seeing is believing and understanding. There 
it stood, fifty feet above the plains, grim and 
forbidding as only a wall can be. The sun 
was already hidden by the wall, and the 
world was left in gloom before its time. 

It was just that funny donkey ride which 
saved the girl from an awful attack of home- 
sickness. i i The long, long thoughts ' ' of home 
were vigorously pushed out by the perform- 
ances of the donkey, which compelled atten- 




Outer Wall of Pekixg 




Hata Gate 



Into a Walled City 13 

tion. Thus for once the contrary little beast 
served as a benefactor, though of course he 
knew it not. Had he known, he would have 
changed his tactics. 

Everywhere and always "discretion is the 
better part of valor," and on this principle 
it is wise for the foreigner to enter a Chinese 
city as quietly as possible. Thus, outside 
the east gate of Peking the travelers ex- 
changed the donkeys for the Peking carts. 
It seemed to the girl as if she were climbing 
into a dog kennel on wheels as she mounted 
for the first time one of these carts. Pres- 
ently they were off, each cart swaying from 
side to side like a plunging boat in the surf. 
First one wheel, then the other made a sharp 
descent into the ruts worn in the stones, so 
that it took some mental equilibrium to keep 
one's head from violent contact with the sides 
of the cart. 

It was almost dusk, and the great iron- 
bound gate was soon to close. Along the 
street the Chinese rushed and scrambled to 
escape from the city while yet there was time. 
Others lined up on either side to watch the 
exciting dash for the gate. It was like run- 
ning for the last train home. Like the safe 



14 Under Marching Orders 

with the time-lock, the gate is not opened 
until sunrise when once it is closed and 
locked. Those who are out can in no wise get 
in, and those who are in cannot by hook or 
crook get out. The traveler who approaches 
the city on horseback, leaving his baggage 
and bedding to follow in the tardy cart, 
passes through the gate himself, but the 
chances are the cart is left outside. In this 
case there is no remedy for a sleepless night, 
since in China the traveler usually supplies 
his own bedding or does without. 

Meanwhile the carts turned from the stone 
road into a narrow, unpaved street. The 
thumping and bumping ceased for a time and 
the girl looked out of the opening at the 
stretch of street ahead. As far as she could 
see were dusty, gray brick walls on either 
side, with not a tree growing anywhere in 
sight. The street was probably not much 
wider than her own room at home. Here 
and there in the walls were heavy doors, all 
tightly closed. Evidently there were houses 
behind the walls, though not even a scrap 
of roof was visible from the street. "Walls, 
walls everywhere, and walls within walls! 
A walled empire, walled cities, and walled 



Into a Walled City 15 

houses! Perhaps a walled people? the girl 
questioned. Just then the carts came to a 
sudden, jerky stop. A door swung open, and 
the girl's journey was at an end. This was 
home. 

There had been a star in her heavens, 
which, like the guiding star of old, had lured 
her from her home in the West to the walled 
house in Peking. Why had she come? The 
Chinese wondered — some of her friends at 
home wondered — but she herself never won- 
dered. She knew. 



A GIRL IN THE MAKING 



17 



II 

A GIEL IN THE MAKING 

"What man has dreamed, that man must do." 

In the woods which bordered upon the 
clearing, two fearless children roamed at 
will. The younger of the two was a slight, 
wiry little figure with a mass of golden curls 
and big blue eyes. They had read in their 
fairy books that sometimes real babies lived 
in the hollow trunks of great forest trees. 
So every day they searched in every hollow 
trunk, peering deep down to find the hidden 
treasure. Their mother had often to leave 
the house in the clearing and hunt anxiously 
for the little girls, who, before she had time 
to miss them, were off on their tour of dis- 
covery. There were wild beasts not far 
away, and dangerous snakes, but of these the 
children took no heed. Their fearlessness 
was their protection, and they played in 
safety under the shiny hemlock trees on the 
slopes of the Alleghanies. 

But the years hastened on, and the happy 
hunting-ground of the children was changed. 

19 



\ 



20 Under Marching Orders 

It was no longer the mysterious forest, but 
a big, gray house in the center of a busy, 
western town. The good times continued 
just the same, for the house was large and 
roomy, and the family large-hearted and hos- 
pitable. The house faced directly upon an 
open common, and not far away was the 
Court-house Square. Tall trees marked their 
shadows upon the green grass of the com- 
mon opposite. There was life and stir in the 
streets of the town, and on the great river 
sturdy steamboats towed the heavy barges, 
which carried flour, grain, and other freight. 
As to a magnet were drawn to this town on 
the Mississippi grain from the fields, ores 
from the mines, and timber from the forests, 
while from it manufactured products of 
many kinds were sent to all parts of the 
nation. 

Across the broad river to its eastern shore, 
the Chicago and Eock Island Railroad had 
built a huge drawbridge, the first bridge 
across the Mississippi. By and by, as war 
became inevitable, Davenport, because it was 
in the center of things north and south and 
east and west, was chosen as a mustering-in 
place for Iowa soldiers. North and east of 




Mary Porter at Twelve Years of Age 



A Girl in the Making 21 

the town there sprang up as in a night the 
tents and barracks of "Camp McClellan, ' ' 
"Camp Boberts," "Cainp Hendershott, ' ' 
and others. On Kock Island, where the gov- 
ernment arsenal now stands, were built the 
large wooden buildings in which at one 
time twelve or fifteen thousand Confederate 
soldiers were imprisoned. Exciting tales 
drifted through the town, tales of how the 
prisoners plotted to escape, planning to 
walk across the river on the ice to the main- 
land and thus away to freedom, or perchance 
back again to battle. 

So it came to pass that things happened in 
the gray house in the square ; things funny, 
sad, and eventful, and the heart of them all 
was the same merry dreamer of a girl who 
followed fearlessly into the woods, the girl 
who always followed fearlessly wherever 
there was the call to go. Her hair was 
still curly and golden, though in the sunlight 
it had a tinge of red. Sometimes her eyes 
positively danced with mischief, and some- 
times they had a quiet, far-away look, as if 
she were seeing into the future. She was 
known as the girl who could always find a 
way out of every difficulty, believing with all 



22 Under Marching Orders 

her might the old proverb, " Where there is 
a will, there is a way." 

From the day when the Southern guns 
fired upon Fort Sumter until the day when 
the flags hung at half-mast because Abraham 
Lincoln was dead, Mary Porter lived in the 
great deeds of the war. With her mother and 
the other children she drove out to camp and 
watched the military drill, listening eagerly 
to the beat of the drum, and learning the 
bugle calls by heart. There she heard those 
songs which made the Southern soldiers say, 
after the war was over, that it was the songs 
of the men in blue that won the war. She 
knew how " Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys 
are marching" and "Bally round the flag" 
could fire the soul so that one would dare 
anything and fear nothing. Later on, when 
the broken ranks of the regiments came 
marching back to Davenport, her clear, 
soprano voice sang the brave, sad songs, 
"Tenting to-night on the old camp ground," 
1 i The vacant chair, ? ' and other like these born 
out of the experience of war. 

Oftentimes the gray house opened its doors 
to the womenfolk who came from a distance 
to be near their husbands, sons, and brothers 



A Girl in the Making 23 

who were soon to be ordered out of camp to 
the front. Then again the busy mother of 
the family welcomed other active women of 
the town, and together they planned diet 
kitchens and hospital supplies for the sol- 
diers. A vast deal of wisdom was stored in 
those heads which wore the big scoop bon- 
nets, and bright were the eyes which looked 
out from under the broad brims. As the war 
drew near its close, these same women 
planned a home for orphaned children of the 
soldiers who had died for their country, 
and located this home in Davenport. 

But there were yet other doings in the 
house in the square. Many a night a bevy of 
schoolgirls sought refuge there when their 
pranks had kept them so late after school that 
it was too dark for them to go to their own 
homes. Mary Porter, Mattie Scott, Cora 
Parkhurst, and Mary Sully were boon com- 
panions, sharing alike in glory and disgrace. 
They had entered into a solemn compact 
whereby if one missed all would miss, and if 
one had to stay after school all would stay. 
So well known was their confederacy, that 
whenever there was sign of disturbance in 
the schoolroom, without looking up, the 



24 Under Marching Orders 

teacher would call the names of the four 
girls. 

It was one night around the fire in the 
Porter house that the famous high school 
escapade was recounted in glowing terms. 
The high school had outgrown its quarters 
in the building with the graded schools, and 
the town had purchased for its use a large, 
half-built church. The rooms down-stairs 
were used for the school, while overhead, 
the unfinished auditorium served as gym- 
nasium, recess-hall, and general rallying- 
place of the boys and girls between sessions. 
Eopes with rings attached hung from the 
ceiling, a suggestion of gymnastic apparatus. 
On the wall, a makeshift ladder, made of 
strips of board nailed across between the 
studding, had been left by the workmen. It 
was the particular joy of the upper-class 
girls to climb this ladder and perch on the 
beams above to eat their luncheons. 

One day a brilliant idea entered the heads 
of the younger girls and was acted upon at 
once. Beginning, of course, at the top, they 
pulled off the thin strips of board until not a 
splinter of the ladder was left. Then they 
returned to the schoolroom with as much un- 



A Girl in the Making 25 

concern as they could assume. Naturally 
the teacher inquired for the missing girls. 
1 ' They were up there when we came down, ' ' 
replied one of the four. The adventure ended 
merrily as it began. The helpless girls on 
the beams did not want the principal to know 
of their ignominious plight, and the teacher 
must put her wits to work to devise a way of 
getting them down. By dint of repeated 
effort she threw the gymnastic ropes within 
their reach. Grasping these, and swinging 
out into the air, one by one they reached the 
floor. 

Mary Porter finished her sophomore year 
in high school when the armies of the North 
and South had disbanded and the tired men 
had scattered to their homes. The nation's 
war was over, but the fighting days of her 
life had just begun. The bugle-call sounded 
in her ears, and like a soldier she fell in line. 
In the deserted barracks of Camp Eoberts the 
orphan children had been assembled in 
school. Teachers were urgently in demand, 
and there was a girl in Davenport ready to 
go wherever she was sure she was needed. 
This girl found out something during the 
year with the children, something which she 



26 Under Marching Orders 

had hitherto suspected, that you really have 
the best kind of a time when you are doing 
things for other people. The notes of the 
bugle were growing clearer, and by and by 
she would know exactly their meaning. 

Something else had taken place in her life, 
even before that merry freshman year in 
high school. It was a real thing, though she 
did not talk much about it at the time or 
afterwards. Those were great days for boys 
and girls to be alive ; days when heroes were 
on every side, even where one did not dream 
of finding them. Deeds of daring and sacri- 
fice in war were told daily by the fireside. 
Men like Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, 
Ulysses S. Grant, and William T. Sherman 
stirred the blood and put iron in the will. 
And yet the girl knew that there was a Hero 
greater than these, even he whose courage 
was back of the war generals, and whose love 
was in her very own soul. He should be her 
Commander General, and his marching or- 
ders she would gladly and instantly obey. 
During that same year, when she was fifteen 
years of age, she joined the church in her 
town, a willing recruit for service in a world- 
wide army. 



A Girl, in the Making 27 

After teaching one year, Mary Porter went 
back to high school, and doing two years' 
work in one, graduated with her own class. 
It was a hard, forced march, and the girl- 
soldier almost fell by the way. Then she 
learned what it meant to pray to God, and 
to depend upon his help. Long years after, 
her letters told of the battle fought in this 
senior year. "I used to ask God to help me 
with geometry, Latin, chemistry, and every- 
thing in which I was likely to stagger from 
overwork. I have sat down at my desk so 
weary and discouraged with everything that 
I could have almost cried ! But in my need I 
would remember God, and I felt his help! 
And so the puzzles disappeared, and I won- 
dered where I had found them. ' ' 

The principal of the high school was proud 
of his star pupil, and asked her to go as 
teacher to Grandview Academy, where he had 
accepted a position. So it came to pass that 
the girl of twenty taught classes of young 
men and women, and many of them were 
older than herself. Brain and hand were 
taxed to the utmost in those busy days at 
Grandview. There were singing-lessons to 
be practised daily, besides her regular sched- 



28 Under Marching Orders 

ule of teaching. Furthermore, the people in 
the little church in the town had chosen the 
resourceful girl as superintendent of the 
Sunday-school. Finally, in every odd mo- 
ment she was studying persistently in order 
to enter college with advanced standing. 

But a dream of another sort came all un- 
bidden and came to stay, and by and by this 
new dream absorbed the ambition for college. 
There was a huge, old-world country, with 
five times as many people as the Eepublic and 
nearly sixty times as many as the Dominion 
of Canada, where teachers were very scarce, 
and where pupils were as the sand of the sea 
for number. Might not she be needed there ? 
From what she had heard, she was sure those 
pupils were in need of lessons. They did not 
know the simplest things about geography or 
history or science, and the girls among them 
didn't even know how to read. At that time 
girls weren't considered worth teaching in 
that ancient land. Moreover, the people did 
not know about God, and heaven, and Jesus 
Christ. Should she not go and teach them? 
She was now under marching orders, and 
when an army regiment is ordered to the 
ends of the earth where is the soldier who 




The House in the Square, Davenport, Iowa 




Old Prison Hospital, Arsenal Island 



A Girl in the Making 29 

hesitates ? The bugle-call had sounded again, 
and this time there was no mistaking its 
meaning. So it came about that* Mary 
Porter, to the surprise of her friends, and 
somewhat to the surprise of herself, decided 
to spend her life in China. 

A strange coincidence was discovered 
while she was making ready to go to China. 
A person by the name of Mary Porter was 
already living in Peking, the city to which 
she was to be sent. Mail matter would cer- 
tainly be confused, so she must put a middle 
letter in her name to identify herself. 
"What shall it be? Query?" she asked of 
her sister one day. "Q stands for query, let 
it be Q," and Mary Q. Porter it was until 
that day in China when she changed her name 
for that of another. 

The gray house in the square was left 
behind for five years at least when the train 
pulled out of Davenport for the west and the 
girl of the house began her long journey. It 
had been arranged by her friends that a 
gentleman whom they knew should meet Miss 
Porter at San Francisco and take her to the 
steamer. He walked through the train 
closely scanning each passenger, but did not 



30 Under Marching Orders 

find any one he thought could be the new mis- 
sionary. As he came back through the car, 
lie stopped nearly opposite her seat and said, 
"I am looking for Miss Porter who is going 
to China. Do any of yon know her?" "I 
am Miss Porter," came a demure voice from 
the depths of the seat. The gentleman turned 
and looked at the slip of a girl with her 
golden curls loose in her neck, and her blue 
eyes shining with amusement. "You!" he 
exclaimed with some emphasis; "I was look- 
ing for an old maid ! " It was no wonder the 
good man was surprised, for this girl of 
twenty-three was one of the youngest mis- 
sionaries ever sent out of the country. In 
San Francisco she found Miss Maria Brown, 
a young woman from New England, who was 
also on her way to China. Together they 
went on board the steamer and sailed out 
through the Golden Gate, sailing west in 
order to go most directly to the Far East. 

And now you know, do you not, why you 
found the American girl riding her donkey 
toward the great wall of Peking that April 
afternoon in 1872? 



BOUND OR UNBOUND? 



si 



m 

BOUND OR UNBOUND? 

"A man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
Or what's a heaven for? " 

One December evening in the sitting-room 
of the "Long Home" in Peking, Mary Porter 
and Maria Brown sat on the floor in front of 
the stove in which a coal fire was brightly 
burning. The chill of a northern winter had 
settled upon Peking, and the clanging bells of 
the camel trains which brought the supply of 
coal from the western hills to the city were 
a very welcome sound in the ears of the 
foreigners. 

Here, within the walled court of a Chinese 
compound, and beneath the tiled roof of a 
Chinese house, was a room distinctively 
American. A sofa of familiar pattern stood 
against the wall. In the center of the room 
was a large table covered with books, and by 
its side a big, friendly arm-chair. An open 
desk was in one corner, and a medicine-chest 
with its rows of labeled bottles waited in 
trim readiness for use. There were pictures 

33 



34 Under Marching Orders 

on the walls, and a straw matting covered the 
boards which had replaced the brick-paved 
floor. The soft light of a shaded lamp shone 
through the long, narrow room, and the two 
glowing eyes of the stove added further 
gleams of brightness. 

This was home to the two young women 
from America, and here, in the quiet of Sun- 
day evening, they faced and settled a momen- 
tous question. From the beginning, girls had 
been admitted to their school only on condi- 
tion that the bound feet should be released 
from the tight bandages and allowed to grow 
naturally. No other girls' school in China 
insisted upon this rule. Should they continue 
to do so? Moreover it had to be acknowl- 
edged that some of the small band of pupils 
already gathered in school had been taken 
away solely because their feet had been un- 
bound. Teachers who had been in the country 
years instead of months said that it would 
not do to break down such an old Chinese 
custom all at once, that parents would never 
allow their girl-children to go to the Chris- 
tian school if so cherished a tradition must 
be sacrificed. 

Here then was the question, and the two 



Bound or Unbound? 35 

young women, as they sat before the fire that 
Sunday evening, knew that only one answer 
was possible. The yards and yards of cotton 
bandage must be removed, and the poor, 
cramped toes and overgrown insteps restored 
to normal size and use. The hollow-eyed, 
sad little girls of China, hobbling about on 
their doll-like feet, should become, in the 
Christian school, rosy, healthy children, run- 
ning and playing like the other small folk of 
God's world. The human body is God's 
own creation and gift, and to distort it is 
more than a cruel national custom ; it is a sin. 
Thus Miss Porter and her companion rea- 
soned together, and thus the question was 
settled. 

That night's decision reached far into the 
future and touched hands with a certain 
edict from the throne of China proclaiming 
in the year 1907, that the girls of the empire 
should henceforth escape the torture of foot- 
binding. And when the girls' school of 
Peking became the largest school for girls 
in all China, there were those who remem- 
bered the Sunday night in the sitting-room of 
the i i Long Home, ' ' and who readily believed 
that the mighty Master himself was present 



36 Under Marching Orders 

at that conference and prompted the daring 
decision. 

The "Long Home" had been so christened 
because of its peculiar dimensions. When 
Mary Porter stepped into the weed-grown 
court on her first morning in Peking, she 
turned to look at the little house which she 
had entered in the darkness of evening. 
There it was, peering out at her from under 
its overhanging eaves and heavy, tiled roof. 
There were three rooms in a row with a 
veranda across the length of the house, 
which, like most Peking houses, was only 
one story high. It was still a typical 
Chinese house, although the Americans who 
lived in the compound had exchanged the 
paper windows for glass, and had laid boards 
over the damp, brick floors. 

As Miss Porter walked down the path, a 
great dog of western breed bounded for- 
ward and greeted his fellow American by 
placing both paws upon her shoulders, mark- 
ing, in his descent, to the ground, the front 
of her gown with streaks of Peking mud. She 
said afterwards "that the act made an im- 
pression upon her mind as well as upon her 
gown, whereby she remembered that it rained 



Bound ok Unbound? 37 

that April morning in Peking." In the 
months and years to come in China, she grew 
to welcome those days of dripping rain as an 
oasis in an endless desert of dust. 

The path straggled through the weeds to a 
hole in the wall of the compound. This hole 
was a perfect circle six feet in diameter, and 
was the Chinese moon-gate. Near the gate 
was a small building which served as chapel. 
In the court were two other houses, three 
fourths Chinese and one fourth American in 
appearance. These were occupied by the two 
families from America who had already made 
Peking their home. A brick-paved court led 
from the inside court to the great, double gate 
which opened on Filial Piety Lane. 

Here, then, was Mary Porter's new world, 
the world of her dream. A gray brick wall 
frowned like the wall of a prison. The long- 
drawn, oriental houses were picturesque, but 
musty and cheerless compared with the open, 
sunny house in Davenport. There were 
about ten other Americans to share her work 
and play. And here within this stuffy com- 
pound was the girl who once was lured by 
the attractions of college, and of large activ- 
ity in the homeland. Had she come to China 



38 Under Marching Orders 

in vain? Listen! From the other side of the 
wall came a singsong of boyish voices shout- 
ing unintelligible sounds. The boys of the 
mission school were studying their lessons 
aloud in good old Chinese fashion. But out 
beyond those gray walls were hundreds of 
little girls, unloved and untaught. No school 
for girls had ever been provided by Chinese 
educators until the coming of the mission- 
aries. Was there not work for the American 
girl to do ? 

The new school for girls grew slowly in 
its pioneer days. The first small pupil who 
came ran away as fast as her bound feet 
could carry her when she saw the queer look- 
ing foreigners. During that first year per- 
haps fifty girls came and went away again, 
while only seven came and remained. The 
Chinese told hideous tales one to another, 
tales of how the foreigners removed the eyes 
of Chinese children and used them for med- 
icine. Mothers would hastily cover the eyes 
of their children when they met the so-called 
"foreign devils " in the streets of Peking, 
lest somehow they cast an evil spell upon 
them. Parents who allowed their children to 
go to the Christian school were mostly so 



Bound or Unbound? 39 

poor that they would accept any means to 
relieve themselves of feeding and clothing 
one more little body. Sometimes the girls 
were left in school only long enough to receive 
new, warm clothing, when they were taken 
home and their clothes sold or pawned. 

Among the seven bewildered little girls 
who dared to stay in the school was a strange 
child called Hui An. She had an unusually 
bright mind and understood the Christian 
teaching more quickly than the other girls, 
but her faculty for memorizing was meager. 
Consequently she was in perpetual disgrace 
with the old Chinese teacher to whom the aim 
and end of education was to learn by heart 
lengthy passages, and even entire books. 

In those days when the school was small, 
it was the habit of the girls to go each even- 
ing, one by one, into a quiet room where they 
knelt with Miss Porter and learned to pray 
to the God whom they had so recently come 
to know. One afternoon as soon as school 
was dismissed, Hui An knocked at Miss 
Porter's door and asked, "Please may I say 
my prayers now?" Miss Porter replied that 
she would better wait until the usual hour. 
But the girl was too much in earnest to be 



40 Under Marching Orders 

refused, and her prayer was heard by Miss 
Porter, and the Father to whom she spoke. 
She arose from her knees with a contented 
face. Miss Porter again asked why she had 
come at that early hour. "By this time the 
child had gained a little more courage, and, 
standing upon one foot, toying nervously 
with her big sleeves, her face downcast, she 
said: 'I love so much to play that every day 
I just play as hard as I can from the time 
school is out until supper time, and after 
supper to prayer time, so when I come in to 
pray I just can think of nothing but the play, 
and all out of breath I want to rush through 
the prayer and be off to play again. And 
now, ' she said, i since I know that God knows 
about this kind of business and doesn't like 
it, I am afraid to do so any more. ' ' ' It was 
the same Hui An who, years after, was 
burned to death because she would not desert 
her post of duty. ' ' There are others depend- 
ent upon me," she said, when asked to escape 
to a place of safety. The hardy spirit of the 
Peking school had mastered the Chinese girl 
and braced her to meet danger and death. 

Sarah "Wang was another of Miss Porter's 
pupils in those early, formative days of the 



Bound or Unbound? 41 

school. She it was who made the famous 
journey from her home in Shan-tung to 
Peking — on a wheelbarrow! It was a dis- 
tance of four hundred miles, taking sixteen 
days for the jerky ride over the uneven 
roads. Sarah's mother and sister Clara 
traveled with her, and the two girls were to 
be left in the Christian school. Mrs. Wang 
belonged to an old, respected family. There 
was by nature a certain queenly element in 
her which made her an undaunted Christian. 
She had become convinced that foot-binding 
was wrong, and thus she fully expected to 
have her daughters' feet freed from the 
bandages as soon as they entered school. 
When the new shoes and stockings were pro- 
duced and the unbinding process began, the 
mother at first smiled approvingly saying, 
" God's will be done, let the feet be unbound." 
Then her fine face quivered with emotion and 
the slow tears came. She wrung her hands 
and walked restlessly up and down the room. 
"Unbind only the feet of one, and let the 
other child's remain bound," she begged 
piteously. And then she reproached herself 
for her weakness. It was the conflict between 
the old life and the new, and it cost to give up 



42 Under Marching Orders 

the old ways. The tiny foot was a sign of 
gentility, of high social standing, and family 
pride put in its claim. But the new faith tri- 
umphed over the old custom and Mrs. Wang's 
face became quiet and earnest. "Go on," 
she said, i i it shall be done. ' ' Thus the victory 
was won in the life of that stately woman of 
an ancient race. 

Some months later, Sarah went home to 
Shan-tung for her first vacation. As she 
rode in her cart through the country, her 
large feet provoked many comments. Beg- 
gars, taking her for a man, followed the cart 
crying out: "Venerable uncle, pity me, pity 
me ! ' ' If she spoke or laughed, thus betray- 
ing her sex, they said, "Venerable maiden." 
If she walked along the road, children would 
come running from the fields to see this 
strange freak of a human being. She over- 
heard some one say, "This, finally, is what 
kind of a person? The head is that of a 
maiden, but the feet are like those of a man, 
and it has bound on ankle ties. What can it 
be?" Thus it cost Sarah as well as her 
mother to give up the old customs and dare 
the scorn of her tormentors. 

She was eleven years old when she returned 



Bound or Unbound? 43 

to school at the end of vacation. In her 
native village they had ridiculed and even 
insulted the girl who had come home with 
unbound feet, the first girl ever seen in that 
region with feet of natural size. Sarah went 
to Miss Porter crying as if her heart would 
break, and declared that never again did she 
want to go home. Then it was that the young 
American teacher who had herself faced crit- 
icism in the home country, and open hostility 
here in China, put nerve and courage in the 
shrinking Chinese girl. "It always means 
suffering to be a pioneer in any work and in 
any land. But for the sake of those who are 
to follow in the way you have trod, can you 
not bear it?" And then she appealed to the 
girl Christian in the name of her Christ. 
"Can you not do this for his sake? Will you 
not help his cause by bearing this hardship? 
Go home every vacation and tell your villa- 
gers that it is for love of a new-found God 
that you remove the bandages which deform 
the body he claims for his temple. Keep on 
telling, and after a while they will under- 
stand, and you will have served your Savior 
and made things easier for all other girls who 
shall unbind their feet." The girl responded 



44 Under Marching Orders 

to this challenge in the same soldier-like 
spirit in which Mary Porter had herself an- 
swered the bugle-call to action. Never again 
did Sarah complain or falter as she went her 
way on the unbound feet. 

During these early years, experiences such 
as fall to the lot of the pioneer beset Mary 
Porter's life in China. She was more than 
an explorer in a new world. She had come as 
a settler, and therefore "what could not be 
cured must somehow be endured." Inva- 
riably she took the hard things in the spirit of 
an interesting adventure, and was true to 
her reputation as the girl who was bound to 
find a way out of every emergency. One day 
Chinese workmen were building the walls 
of the new schoolhouse in the compound. 
The Chinese method of construction was to 
lay double walls of brick quite close together, 
with single bricks placed across between the 
walls at frequent intervals to serve as sup- 
ports. These connecting bricks were abso- 
lutely necessary for the stability of the wall. 
Mary Porter had kept strict watch of the wily 
Chinese, who were waiting for the chance to 
omit the third row of bricks if they could do 
so undetected. Every day, as the wall rose 



Bound or Unbound? 45 

higher and higher, she climbed up and peered 
into the space between. One morning she 
heard a workman say, ' ' The wall is too high 
now for the girl to climb." Thereupon she 
determined that they should see whether or 
not the girl could climb. She mounted the 
scaffolding, and with one push sent the shaky 
wall crumbling to the ground. After that 
the builders learned to respect the American 
girl whose blue eyes missed little of what was 
going on about her, and whose ears were 
quick to understand even the strange words 
of Chinese speech. 

As the months went on, novelty of life in 
the compound was worn threadbare. Every 
nook and corner, crack and crevice of the 
dusty old Chinese houses became familiar. 
Each and every object in the rooms could be 
located with one's eyes closed. At home in 
the United States, when monotony threatens, 
there is always the chance to go down-town 
and look in the shopwindows, perhaps to go 
to a concert of beautiful music, or better yet, 
walk for long distances in the open country. 
If Mary Porter ventured outside the double 
gate of the compound into the streets of 
Peking, the very children would cover their 



46 Under Marching Orders 

eyes and run in the opposite direction. When 
at a safe distance they would join with others 
in the cry, "Foreign devil!" Then there 
were scenes in the streets which haunted her 
memory day and night. Dead cats and dogs 
were left unburied. Little dingy bundles 
wrapped in coarse matting were cast outside 
the gates of the houses to await the coming 
of the ox-cart which passed daily through the 
streets to bear the bodies of dead babies to 
burial. If a man were in mortal danger no 
Chinese would venture to his relief, lest he 
be dragged to court on charge of having 
caused the man's misfortune. An American 
bishop once said that he had discovered sixty- 
nine different unpleasant odors in unwhole- 
some Peking, besides a combination of sev- 
eral others which he could not distinguish. 
In the market-places and near the city gates 
the dust was unspeakable. Peking dust is 
unique among all dusts of the earth for its 
blackness, its stickiness, and its actual filth. 
No wonder then that Miss Porter chose to 
walk on the great wall of the city above the 
sights and sounds and odors of the street. 
Tall grasses sprang up unchecked between 
the stones. Myriads of birds flew high and 



Bound or Unbound? 47 

low. Even the birds of China were different 
from their brothers of America. The pet 
pigeons had whistles tied to their tails, and 
as they flew their buzzing shriek could be 
heard in all directions. 

In the summer-time Miss Porter looked 
down from the wall into dense, green foliage 
through which the yellow tiles of the palace 
buildings gleamed like leaves of gold. There 
were once two travelers in Peking, one of 
whom said the city was treeless, and the 
other that it was a veritable forest ; the dif- 
ference being, that one traversed the city 
streets, and the other the city wall. The trees 
were all enclosed within the walls by which 
Chinese dwellings were surrounded, and be- 
cause the walls were high and the streets 
narrow, not a sign of a tree was visible from 
the street. 

There was always a sense of home-coming 
when Miss Porter returned from her walk on 
the wall to Filial Piety Lane and into the 
compound behind the double gate. Unques- 
tionably there was work to do in her new 
world, and work that was worth doing. One 
day she wrote a letter which traveled across 
the sea to that other home in America : ' ' No, 



48 Under Marching Orders 

I have had no regular — wonder if you did not 
mean irregular — fits of homesickness. I have 
longed to see you all, thought of you until the 
tears come — not common with me — but there 
is no despondency in it. I fully believe God 
has kept me from such feelings, and in an- 
swer to prayer. . . . An Influence has sup- 
ported me all the way that I did not feel in 
past days." 

In the ' i Long Home ' ' each noon- time, Mary 
Porter and Maria Brown knelt together to 
ask God's blessing upon the new work which 
had come into being through their own lov- 
ing efforts. In some way one of their fellow 
laborers heard of the daily habit, and at his 
suggestion the noon hour was made a time 
of prayer for the entire mission. 

There in the musty compound, in a corner 
of the huge, alien city, nearly nine thousand 
miles from home, Mary Porter spent the 
years of her young womanhood. And those 
days of prolonged anxiety, even of fierce 
excitement and bitter peril which were yet to 
come, cast no foreboding shadow. It was with 
a great, glad hope that she marched into that 
unknown future within which, near or far, 
she would find her dream come true. 



IN A PEKING CART 



49 



IV 
IN A PEKING CAST 

"Made like our own strange selves, with memory, mind, and 
will; 
Made with a heart to love, and a soul to live forever! " 

Early one October morning, two carts 
drawn by mules passed through the Hata 
gate of the city. They were just ordinary 
Peking carts, having none of the insignia of 
official rank, such as the broad band of red 
cloth around the wooden sides, or the pomp- 
ous outriders on mules bedecked with tasseled. 
trappings. Faded cloth of Chinese blue cov- 
ered the tops of the carts. By their side rode 
two escorts on horseback, one a Chinese boy, 
and the other a foreigner. It was the pres- 
ence of the Western stranger which excited 
the curiosity of the throng on the road out- 
side the gate. Eager eyes gazed into the 
openings at the front of the carts. Sure 
enough there were other ridiculous foreigners 
inside. Moreover they were women, Amer- 
ican women, and one had curly, light hair and 
blue eyes. What a laughable contrast to the 

51 



52 Under Marching Orders 

dark-eyed women of China, with their coils 
of glossy, black hair! "Who but a Western 
barbarian would have curly hair! 

If the inquisitive Chinese could have peered 
still farther into one of the carts, they would 
have discovered satchels and books, and 
the usual supply of bedding without which no 
traveler, native or foreign, fares forth in 
China. On the back of the cart were strapped 
a large box containing dishes, cooking uten- 
sils, the small charcoal stove, and a generous 
provision of food. This was the portable 
kitchen and pantry combined, so necessary to 
the comfort of him who seeks the uncertain 
hospitality of Chinese inns. Two mules drew 
the cart. One was harnessed between the 
shafts and attended strictly to duty. The 
other was attached by a long rope fastened 
near the axle. He described a circle through 
the surrounding country, unless recalled by 
the long whip of the carter. On the side of 
the shaft sat the little man who wielded the 
reins and brandished the whip. Only to the 
foreigners was the Peking cart a doubtful 
convenience. To the Chinese, the springless 
box on wheels was a simple necessity, whose 
possible improvement was not to be consid- 




Peking Carts on Rough Roads 




River Ferry 



In a Peking Cart 53 

ered. Even the long nails which fastened the 
rims on the wheels, and which dug their bris- 
tling heads into the ground, stirred no crit- 
icism. It was only the nervous Westerner 
who objected. 

Meanwhile the two carts and the two 
riders traveled steadily away from the cap- 
ital city out toward the borders of the royal 
province of Chih-li, southeast in the direction 
of Shan-tung. It was a long journey these 
wayfarers had planned, and stout must be 
the nerves and courage of him who endures 
to the end. It was like Mary Porter, like the 
venturesome girl of old, to start unhesita- 
tingly upon a trip never before attempted by 
a woman. Once, in the Peking compound, she 
wrote a letter home in which were these 
words: "I refuse to acknowledge that there 
is anything I ought to do which I cannot do." 
Nine hundred miles of travel in a Peking 
cart was a formidable prospect even to the 
strongest man, but with the call of duty in 
her ears, it could and should be done. Her 
fellow travelers were the gentleman on horse- 
back and his wife who rode with her in the 
cart. In the other cart sat Mrs. Wang, the 
mother of Sarah, who was now a Bible 



54 Under Marching Orders 

woman, and often Miss Porter's companion 
on the country trips. Another of the mis- 
sionaries was to join them at Tientsin. Thus 
with the Chinese servant and the two carters, 
there were eight people to share the expe- 
riences of travel. 

Each day the carts covered the allotted 
distance for a day's journey, thirty miles. 
Tientsin had been left behind, and they were 
now in a country new and strange to the 
women from the Western world. About dusk 
the mules and horses drew up in Hsing-chi. 
It was one of those excitable Chinese towns 
where it was easy to stir up a mob. The carts 
bumped through the long village from one 
end to the other, but every inn was stubbornly 
closed against the foreigners. A crowd was 
rapidly gathering and following close upon 
them. There was nothing to do but start at 
once for the next village. On the outskirts 
of Hsing-chi they found a dirty little inn 
huddled down by the roadside. It was too 
forlorn even to raise a protest against the 
foreigners, so a refuge for the night was 
found at last. Miss Porter and her compan- 
ion slept in a room which had apparently 
been used as a stable. There was scarcely 



In a Peking Cart 55 

any furniture save the usual brick kang 
(bed) under which the fire may be built. 
The walls were of grimy clay, and the floor 
of bare, brown earth. 

In the morning, in the midst of prepara- 
tions for an early start, a horse broke loose 
and ran down the road. One of the men of 
the party went in pursuit, and upon his return 
passed and repassed the little crouching inn 
before recognizing his habitation of the night. 
Afterward he remarked that he didn't think 
it possible for Christian people to have stayed 
in "such a hole." 

Beyond Meng-ts'un, the carts turned aside 
from their course to search out the site of 
old Ts'ang-chou. New Ts'ang-chou is four- 
teen miles distant on the bank of the river. 
Legend has it that the inhabitants moved the 
town by passing one brick after another along 
two parallel lines of people which stretched 
from the old town to the new. True it was 
that only low mounds covered with stiff 
grass, and the famous lion wrought of cast 
iron, remained to tell the story of a once 
populous city. That peculiar silence which 
haunts deserted things, hung low over the 
uneven grass and the fallen lion. The head 



56 Under Marching Orders 

had been broken from the body of the beast 
and lay on the ground a few feet distant. 
Still farther on lay the nose, which was of 
such great weight that no man could lift it. 
The entire party sat down together inside the 
head, and the horses stood inside the body. 
The broken lion was another token of the 
age of that land which, though so old in years, 
was yet a child in wisdom. Hundreds of 
years ago, the lion, with a companion lion, 
guarded the entrance of a palace in the 
ancient town long since vanished. 

In the little chapel at Shang-chia-chai, the 
next stopping place, the Chinese Christians 
gathered for evening prayer and the singing 
of hymns. They had heard of the clear, 
soprano voice which led the singing in the 
compound at Peking, and Miss Porter's com- 
ing was hailed with joy. With childlike sat- 
isfaction they sang the old hymns of the 
Church, begging Miss Porter to correct their 
mistakes, as they had learned most of the 
songs from Chinese teachers. Frequently 
they stopped singing to tell her how eagerly 
they had hoped for good singers to come and 
teach them. The old tune of Greenville was 
their particular favorite, and they sang it 



In a Peking Cart 



57 



again and again with whole-hearted enthusi- 
asm. Miss Porter listened appreciatively to 
their original variation in the last measure, 
which was sung with keenest enjoyment. 
The hymn closes in this way : 




They sang it thus: 



(^jj^lV^ 



At best, Chinese voices are not melodious 
in song, yet music of angels could scarcely 
have been more thrilling than were those 
Christian hymns sung straight from the heart 
of men and women who had so recently 
learned that the love of Jesus Christ can 
create a perpetual song in the life of man. 

During one of her vacations spent in the 
United States Miss Porter studied at a con- 
servatory in New York, trying to repair the 



58 Under Marching Orders 

injury done her voice by dusty China and 
the husky Chinese. There it was that the 
vocal teacher said to her: "If you had come 
to us ten years earlier, we would have made 
a first-class soprano, and spoiled a first-class 
missionary." 

Late in October the little band of travelers 
came to the river which goes by the name 
of "China's Sorrow." Richly does it de- 
serve its name. In its descent from the 
snow-covered mountains of Tibet it collects 
the yellow clay deposit from the loess country 
of northwestern China. Down in the region 
of the Great Plain this clay chokes the chan- 
nel, until the river bed is almost as high as 
the surrounding country. Then in time of 
freshet the water bursts through the fragile 
dikes, overwhelming crops, adobe houses, and 
sometimes hundreds of thousands of people. 

Crossing the Yellow River is a novel ex- 
perience for the foreigner, to say the least. 
A crude fiatboat propelled by a scull answers 
the purpose of a ferry. To stem the swift 
current the scull is kept in vigorous motion, 
but even so the boat is carried inevitably 
down stream and makes a diagonal landing 
on the other shore. On the return trip, the 



In a Peking Cart 59 

boat crosses and makes its way up stream by 
hugging the bank out of reach of the central 
current. To transport carts, mules, horses, 
and people, was as much of a problem as the 
old conundrum about the fox, the goose, and 
the bag of corn. First, the mules had to be un- 
hitched, then the carts were drawn over heavy 
planks and placed side by side on the boat. 
Shouts and lashings compelled the animals 
to walk across the rude gangway, and last 
of all the eight passengers went on board and 
the boat started. Meanwhile a great crowd 
had time to assemble on both banks of the 
river to see the "foreign devils " and more 
especially the "devil women." Miss Porter 
won the distinguished title of "little devil" 
because she was not so tall as her three com- 
panions. 

In the villages and on the river banks these 
Chinese throngs were not disrespectful to the 
foreigners ; they were only highly amused and 
took no pains to disguise the fact. Miss 
Porter often thought of the old chorus : 

"The elephan t now goes round, 
The band begins to play." 

If she talked earnestly to the women gathered 
in a Chines^ home, they watched her move- 



60 Under Marching Orders 

ments as they would watch the antics of a 
monkey. One day a Chinese pastor was 
preaching to the people of a village, but his 
audience were so fully absorbed in gazing at 
Miss Porter they had no ears for his words. 
Without warning he said, "I know she's 
queer looking, with her pink hair and green 
eyes, but I want you to listen to me. ' ' There- 
upon he resumed his discourse. Experiences 
of this kind had their funny side, but never- 
theless Miss Porter came to the end of many 
a day tired and disheartened. It was a slow 
task to find a way into the minds of these 
strange people for the life-story she had come 
to tell. She could only pray and wait. 

Down in the province of Shan-tung the 
carts bounced over the plowed ground in 
search of the road they had lost. Darkness 
had dropped gradually upon the land, and 
Mrs. Wang's village was yet unreached. A 
faint light flickered in the distance. The 
carts drove in that direction only to find a 
grave in the midst of a field, and a fire burn- 
ing near by. Paper food and other supposed 
necessities were being burned for the spirits 
of those who had gone from the land of the 
living into that mysterious darkness which 



In a Peking Cart 



61 



Chinese religion knows not how to interpret. 
At length the carts recovered the road which 
led into An-chia-chuang, the ancestral home 
of the Wang family. In the rooms adjoining 
Mrs. "Wang's court, the travelers settled them- 
selves for the night, and for the week or more 
they were to spend in that neighborhood. 

On this long country journey they usually 
stayed in some village where a pioneer 



^^^^illH^S^ 




»"■■.■■'. 



KOREA BAY 



\- f.^ u GULF OF 












||ll||rtiil|- 



YELLOW SEA 



Journey from Peking to An-chia-chuang 



62 Under Marching Orders 

worker had gone before and founded a little 
mission station. Here they unpacked the 
cotton mattresses and kitchen from the cart, 
and made themselves as comfortable as they 
could in the midst of Chinese surroundings. 
From this town as headquarters they rode 
each day into the outlying villages to visit 
and teach the women. A song was in their 
hearts as they went, because of the high joy 
of making the great Christ known to those 
who never before dreamed such love was 
possible. 

It was from An-chia-chuang that Sarah 
Wang had set forth on her wheelbarrow. To 
the remote little town she returned on her 
unbound feet. And now her villagers were 
to see for themselves the foreign teacher who 
had given Sarah the strangely beautiful 
truths which had changed her life. 

One day Mrs. Wang took Miss Porter into 
the court occupied by the family of her hus- 
band's brother. This branch of the family 
still clung to the beliefs and superstitions of 
Confucianism. Opening upon the court was 
a large room, grimy with smoke, whose walls 
were hung with seed-corn, dried herbs, and 
all manner of implements. In a dingy cor- 



In a Peking Cart 63 

ner of the room stood a long table on which 
were arranged the tablets of family ancestors, 
beginning hundreds of years back. Chinese 
characters were carved on the face of each 
tablet, giving the date of birth and death, as 
well as the two names of the person ; the one 
borne in life, and the new name bestowed 
upon the dead spirit. In the hollow down the 
center, deftly covered by a thin strip of wood, 
the soul was supposed to abide. According to 
Chinese belief man has three souls. One 
abides in the tablet, another is buried with the 
body, and the third proceeds on his lonely 
way to the spirit world. Before the tablet in 
which dwells the imprisoned spirit, the loyal 
Chinese must burn incense, and bow low in 
homage and promised obedience. When a 
member of the household becomes a Chris- 
tian, he refuses to participate in this heathen 
ceremony, and is usually disinherited in con- 
sequence. The sturdy little man who drove 
Miss Porter's cart, told her that his name and 
the names of his brothers had been erased 
from the family records because for years 
they had declined to join the family in an- 
cestral worship, 
j Mrs. "Wang's village was not far from 



64 Under Marching Orders 

a historic region. About a hundred and 
thirty miles to the southwest was Ch'iu-fu, 
the home and burial-place of Confucius. In 
the "Most Holy Grove' ' beyond the "Spirit 
Boad" lay the body of the one who has 
directly influenced one fourth of all the people 
of the world. Confucius taught some noble 
principles of living, but the deepest ques- 
tions of life he could not and did not try to 
answer. He pointed his disciples to the misty 
days of antiquity as the ideal for all Chinese 
living. Thus for more than two thousand 
years, thousands of millions of people have 
stood with "their faces toward the dead past, 
the future a darkness out of which no voice 
comes. " And yet, five hundred years after 
Confucius died, there came to another city 
in Asia the Teacher whose voice has lifted 
the heads of his disciples to behold the glories 
above and beyond, and has drawn their hearts 
to him in love. How strange that throughout 
all these centuries, and on the very same con- 
tinent where he lived, the Chinese should 
scarcely know his name ! Has not that love 
reached also unto them? 

Late in the nineteenth century the little 
group of the followers of Christ labored in 



In a Peking Cart 65 

his name in the ancient province of Shan- 
tung. However much the holy city of the 
province may have interested that dauntless 
young traveler, Mary Porter did not go from 
An-chia-chuang to visit Ch'iu-fu. Women 
came from the surrounding villages to learn 
of the foreign teacher, and her hands were 
full of work. Moreover the day was soon 
to come when she must leave Mrs. Wang and 
the new Christians, and enter her cart for the 
return journey. 

As the heads of the mules were turned 
toward the north, Yang Ssu, the carter, re- 
marked with satisfaction: "Now we leave the 
mountains of the south. When we see the 
mountains in the north there will be hope, 
for they are the mountains about Peking.' ' 
There were snow-storms to encounter on the 
homeward way, for the lovely autumn days 
had long since gone. Ice blocked the river 
near the bridge of boats ; the chill of winter 
was in the air. All the more was the joy of 
home-coming in her heart, as Mary Porter 
drew near the great wall of Peking, and after 
fifty days of travel passed again behind the 
walls of the compound on Filial Piety Lane, 
where a great experience lay just ahead. 



THE TURNING OF THE ROAD 



THE TURNING OF THE EOAD 

"A turn, and we stand in the heart of things." 

One day in the fall of 1881, there was a 
stir of excitement in the compound in Peking. 
A young man had come from New York to 
join the mission, and the arrival of a new 
worker was always a great event. 

Everywhere in the world a halo of inter- 
est rests for a time upon the newcomer. He 
is also more or less on trial until he has 
proved his mettle. In double measure were 
these things true in the little settlement in 
Peking. Twelve or fifteen Americans were 
living within a walled court in the midst of an 
Oriental city. To be sure, there were other 
Americans and Europeans in Peking, but 
each group lived within its own walled en- 
closure, and attended to its own work. For 
the most part, the people in the mission com- 
pound depended upon one another for com- 
panionship and sympathy. They were like 
one large family occupying one family plan- 
tation. The children of the mission had the 

69 



70 Under Marching Orders 

habit of calling all the grown-ups " uncle" 
and "aunt." One small lad was taken to 
America in his early years, and seeing the 
throngs of white people on the streets of New 
York exclaimed: "So many uncles and 
aunts ! ' ' 

It was no wonder that a new member of the 
group was the center of attention until he 
settled into his place in the community life. 
Those who were the first to greet the young 
man, brought back the verdict that he looked 
like "the captain of a prize rowing crew." 
Every one seemed to be happily confident 
that he was a great addition to the mission, 
and that he would do a large work in the 
newly awakening world of China. That their 
predictions were fulfilled we shall see. 

Mr. Frank D. Gamewell was the son of 
John N. Gamewell, the inventor of the Game- 
well Fire Alarm and Police Telegraph. Evi- 
dently he inherited his father's scientific 
bent, for he chose the career of civil engineer, 
and for his training went to the Polytechnic 
Institute in Troy, New York, and also to 
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Be- 
yond most young men, he had large dreams of 
activity and success along his line of work. It 



The Turning of the Road 71 

was a great, busy world in which he lived, and 
he meant to take his place among its strong 
workers. Suddenly, in the senior year at 
college came the unexpected decision to go 
to China. October of the same year found 
him in the mission station in Peking. 

The new dream had come to him very much 
as it had come to Mary Porter. Both the 
young man and the young woma'n had high 
ambitions for an active life at home. Then 
came to each one that clear, unmistakable 
summons which no true soldier dares dis- 
obey. And so the two found themselves in the 
walled compound in Peking. The woman had 
come a few years before and had entered 
upon her work. The man stood at the thresh- 
old of his immense opportunity, alert and 
purposeful. 

It was not strange that they became great 
friends, for in some ways they were much 
alike. They preferred a busy life, full to the 
brim of work and enjoyment. They reveled 
in out-of-doors, in long horseback rides, and 
in the beauty of land and sky. They loved 
books and music, and everything that sug- 
gested the poetry and the wonder of life. In 
the moments which could be snatched from 



72 Under Marching Orders 

the busy work-days of winter, they talked 
together before the coal fire in the sitting- 
room. In the spring they walked on the city 
wall and marveled at the strange life about 
them. Sometimes there were long country 
tours, when those who journeyed in company 
came into a closer knowledge of one another. 
There is verily no end to the interesting sub- 
jects congenial people can discuss together. 
Each mind brings out the best in the other, 
and keen is the joy of such comradeship. It 
was but a natural conclusion to a natural 
friendship that Mary Q. Porter should be- 
come the wife of Frank D. Gamewell. The 
"Q" which stood for the question was an- 
swered in the new name which became her 
own. They were married on a June evening 
in 1882, in the church which had been built 
in the compound. The Eev. George E. Davis, 
who had married Miss Maria Brown a few 
years previously, performed the wedding 
ceremony. 

In 1884, the Mission Board in New York 
sent word to Mr. Gamewell that he had been 
appointed superintendent of the mission in 
Chung-ch' ing, sixteen hundred miles from 
the seacoast, out toward the borderland of 




Fbank D. Gamewell Mary Portee 

At the Time of Marriage 



The Turning of the Road 73 

Tibet. This was an unexpected marching- 
order, but once again like soldiers under com- 
mand, the man and woman arose and obeyed. 
Only three years old was this mission in 
the frontier city in the midst of a restless, 
untamed people. For the second time in her 
life Mrs. Game well would become the pioneer 
in a work newly started. For the second 
time also would she have to leave home and 
venture into the unknown surroundings. To 
go out from the compound in Filial Piety 
Lane was almost as heroic a move as it had 
been to leave the gray house in Davenport. 
Since her marriage she had had her own 
home in one of the houses which had been 
built inside the enlarged court. It was an 
original and artistic home in its arrange- 
ments, like the woman who always had her 
own individual way of doing things. Then 
again there was the girls' school which she 
had mothered from its birth. The Bible 
women, too, she had sought herself in the 
villages and brought to Peking to study. It 
was her own work, a part of her very self, and 
it rent her heart to give it up. Yet out in 
West China was the little struggling mission 
calling for her ready resource and for Mr. 



74 Under Marching Orders 

Gamewell 's energy to plan and do. Evidently 
their hour of opportunity had come. 

Down in the vast, swarming city of Shang- 
hai they paused to prepare for the long in- 
land journey up the Yang-tzu Eiver to 
Chung-ch'ing. The first one thousand miles 
could be traveled in a comfortable river 
steamer, but for the last six hundred miles 
they would have to depend upon native boats, 
upon which the passenger provides his own 
food and bedding. To meet this emergency 
they purchased fruit, meat, fish, vegetables, 
butter and milk in sealed tins, and the other 
necessities of Oriental travel, all of which the 
foreign stores in Shanghai abundantly sup- 
plied. 

The river, which is called "China's 
Girdle/ ' is to China what the Mississippi is 
to the United States, the St. Lawrence to 
Canada, and the Amazon to South America. 
For years beyond count the Yang-tzu Eiver 
has been a highway of traffic for half the 
empire of China. From the mountains of 
Tibet it winds its way three thousand miles 
to the ocean. Even thirty miles out to sea its 
yellow waters conquer the blue of the Pacific. 
.Time was when only native junks plied their 



The Turning of the Road 75 

busy way over this mighty river. Then came 
the bold mariner from the Western world, 
who pushed his ocean vessel two hundred 
miles up the Yang-tzu to Nanking, China's 
famous city of learning. Eiver steamers soon 
connected Nanking with Hankow, four hun- 
dred miles beyond, and finally, small steam- 
boats sailed triumphantly up stream to 
I-ch'ang. Beyond I-ch'ang were the fierce 
rapids of the upper Yang-tzu, where foreign 
enterprise gave way before simple Chinese 
ingenuity. It was not wholly strange that 
the Chinese should look with suspicion upon 
the intruder from across the seas. Native ves- 
sels had been thrust out of business and lay 
useless on the river banks. Their owners 
thought they had good reason for throwing 
missiles at steamboats, and joining the ranks 
which shouted death to the foreigner. 

At I-ch'ang Mr. Gamewell chartered a 
native boat for the trip to Chung-ch'ing. It 
was eighty feet long, and boasted four pas- 
senger cabins, and a crew of forty-two men. 
At the stern of the boat a huge oar forty feet 
long, served as a rudder. Nearby were the 
drum, the pilot's signal, and the coils of bam- 
boo rope for the mysterious " trackers/ ' 



76 Under Marching Orders 

There was a great hubbub when the junk 
pulled away from its moorings. Loud orders 
were shouted by the captain; angry voices 
of sailors contested right of passage with the 
crews of other junks. Emerging at last from 
the jam of boats, the men at the oars fell into 
a rhythmic tread to the tune of a native boat- 
song. 

They were a picturesque lot of men, these 
boatmen of the upper Yang-tzu. Mrs. Game- 
well called them the only picturesque Chinese 
she had ever seen. The detested cue had 
been wound around the head and covered by 
a turban. The cue is a symbol of the sub- 
jection of the Chinese, forced upon them by 
the haughty Manchus when they took posses- 
sion of the Chinese government nearly three 
hundred years ago. The bold men of the 
western provinces scorned this sign of their 
humiliation, and since they dared not cut it 
off, took this means of concealing it. Long 
bandages bound their legs from ankle to knee 
to protect from the strain of climbing. Their 
trousers ended at the top of the bandages, 
and a short jacket belted with a sash com- 
pleted the costume. 

The first day beyond I-ch'ang brought Mr. 




Photo lay Elliott 



Trackers on the Yang-tzu 



The Turning of the Road 77 

and Mrs. Gamewell into the solemn presence 
of the great gorges of the Yang-tzii. Per- 
pendicular walls rose a thousand feet above 
the dark stream, shutting out the sky and 
daylight. The wind shrieked like a demon 
through the narrow passageway. The trav- 
elers looked with interest for the little tow- 
paths which twisted along the ragged edge of 
rocky cliffs hundreds of feet above their 
heads. Mrs. Gamewell thought there was 
scarcely foothold for a mountain goat. 
Near each rapid dwelt a band of trackers 
whose task it was to aid the crews. Some- 
times the water rushed so swiftly that one 
hundred extra men were needed for each 
boat. It was a breathless moment when the 
tow-lines were thrown to the "trackers," 
the drum signaled, and the boat dashed into 
the current. The men bent almost to the 
ground as they tugged at the long ropes, and 
the boat began slowly, inch by inch, to mount 
the rushing torrent. For a full half hour the 
trackers pulled, the waters roared, the drum 
beat and the pilot shouted, until at last the 
boat plunged in safety through the three 
hundred yards of rapids and passed into 
calmer water. Mrs. Gamewell had traveled 



78 Under Marching Orders 

in an assortment of conveyances, but for 
sheer excitement there was nothing to com- 
pare with the Chinese boat on the upper 
Yang-tzu. 

For two weeks the boat clung to its wind- 
ing course through narrow gorges, under 
tall, black cliffs and rugged mountains. The 
majesty and the loneliness of it all was al- 
most too much to endure. At last the river 
widened, the mountains ceased to press so 
close, and a gentle hill country gave heart to 
the strangers in a strange land. One day, 
a month after leaving I-ch'ang, following a 
bend in the river they came all at once in sight 
of the "city built on a hill." It was Chung- 
ch'ing, the goal of their journey. "The vast 
and solemn solitudes out of which we had 
come left us with an impression of having 
arrived at the end of the world, with the 
habitations of men left far behind. The great 
city with its frowning wall encircling the 
rocky spur on which the city lay, seemed an 
unreal thing — a vision." 

Thus Mrs. Gamewell wrote in a home letter 
describing her sensations at the end of the 
wonderful journey. The phantom city be- 
came abruptly real as they climbed the long 



The Turning of the Road 79 

flight of stone steps from the river edge three 
hundred feet to the city wall, and proceeded 
through the gate to their new home. 

Inside four plastered mud walls were the 
Chinese buildings belonging to the new mis- 
sion. Unlike Peking houses they were two 
stories in height. They were built a few feet 
from the wall, facing upon a small inside 
court dismally darkened by the overhanging 
roofs of the houses. Ceaselessly did the cling- 
ing mists drip, drip upon the stones below. 
It was late in the morning before the sun's 
rays cast a gleam upon the pavement, and 
sometimes at three o'clock in the afternoon 
the evening lamps must be lighted. Mrs. 
Gamewell said it was like living in a well. 

Furthermore the houses were so close to- 
gether they almost formed one continuous 
structure. For a sensitive nature the lack of 
privacy was a constant irritation. Mrs. 
Gamewell once shut herself into a small closet 
for two hours in the desperate need to be 
alone. 

Before experience taught its weary lesson 
she used sometimes to go to the northern 
gate in the vain hope of a breath of fresh air 
from the hills. Occasionally, as she opened 



80 Under Marching Orders 

the door, a baby tumbled in. Usually it was a 
girl, sickly or deformed, cast off by her par- 
ents. Sometimes it was a dead child whose 
burial would thus be avoided by the wretched 
parents, for Chinese law requires that those 
on whose premises a dead body is found shall 
give it burial. 

Verily a sublime faith in God and in each 
other was demanded of the man and woman 
who had come to work among these deluded 
people. At times a thought of the awful dis- 
tance from home swept in and caught them 
unawares. Down through the tremendous 
gorges of the Yang-tzu, two months to Shang- 
hai, across the long, blue waters of the Pacific, 
another month of travel before they could 
reach the friends at home ! But for the man 
and his wife there was never a doubt or 
regret. Mrs. Gamewell reveals the secret. 
"I truly rejoiced to believe that the Master 
controls each event as it comes. I am so glad 
that he is in it all, that nothing seems severe 
so far as I am concerned/' 



A CHINESE MOB 



81 



VI 

A CHINESE MOB 

"By faith he went out, not knowing whither he went." 

More than three miles outside the city on 
the great road leading to the capital of the 
province, and high on the bank of the river, 
lay the property recently purchased by the 
Chung-ch'ing mission. The Chinese tenants 
had vacated, and two of the mission families 
had taken possession. It was like freedom 
from prison to escape from the damp, dole- 
ful quarters of the old compound into the 
sunlight of the open country. Often in the 
morning Mrs. Gamewell walked into the city, 
returning in the evening when the day's work 
was done. 

New vigor and hope quickened body and 
mind. The girls' school seemed to be gaining 
favor among the suspicious Chinese. The hos- 
pital was winning the gratitude of a people 
for much of whose pain there had been no 
remedy until the coming of the "Western phy- 
sician. On every side was encouragement. 
Out on the highway which passed the new 

83 



84 Under Marching Orders 

home of the mission, multitudes of Chinese 
surged to and fro, and with characteristic 
curiosity and disregard of time, lingered at 
the premises of the foreigner to see and hear. 
Meanwhile, Chinese workmen slowly raised 
the walls of the hospital and school buildings 
which were to meet the demands of the en- 
larging work. Mrs. Gamewell's letters were 
full of enthusiasm. Whenever there was 
work to do and she was needed to do it, this 
little woman of indomitable spirit made good 
her opportunity. 

Gradually into her hopefulness crept a 
dreary foreboding. For some reason the 
Chinese became more openly hostile to the 
foreigners. There had always been a smoth- 
ered resentment against the stranger from 
the Western world, a misunderstanding of 
his motive and his doings, but now the smol- 
dering fire seemed likely to burst into flame. 
The walls of the mission were splashed with 
mud. Proclamations issued by the officials 
in approval of the missionaries were ruth- 
lessly torn down. "Foreign dog" and "for- 
eign devil" were shouted with stinging em- 
phasis. One day three men tried to assault 
Mr. Gamewell as he walked alone in the city. 



A Chinese Mob 85 

One of them deliberately flung himself in his 
way meaning to throw him down, but the 
trap failed, and the three joined in a jeering 
pursuit along the street. 

The 6th of June was a feast-day in China, 
the 5th of the Fifth Moon, when the 
Chinese Dragon Festival was celebrated. It 
was Sunday, according to Christian reckon- 
ing, but for the Chinese it was a day of rev- 
elry. In holiday mood they thronged the 
highways of the city. Yet out on the great 
road there was comparative orderliness and 
quiet, and a long line of pedestrians moved 
steadily toward the city gate. Mrs. Game- 
well had been left at home this June Sunday, 
while her colaborers, Mr. G-amewell included, 
went into the city to conduct Church services. 
She was tired and in need of rest, and more- 
over it was not safe on a feast-day to leave 
the compound in sole charge of the Chinese 
servants. The people were especially med- 
dlesome those days and it would be necessary 
to keep the gate rigorously closed. 

The morning passed uneventfully, but soon 
after the noon hour a babel of loud voices was 
heard on the road outside. Presently there 
was a vigorous pounding on the gate, and a 



86 Under Marching Orders 

rain of stones fell upon the tiled roof of a 
building near the wall. Mrs. Gamewell took 
a stout oak stick in her hand, and went to 
the gate which a servant opened at her bid- 
ding. There they were, a close-pressing, 
seething mob of Chinese! Standing calmly 
by the gate-post she looked into the dark, 
shifting faces and began to speak. She told 
them it was contrary to all their li (customs) 
to seek to visit a house when the men were 
absent. This is a sensitive point of Chinese 
etiquette recognized alike by all classes, so 
at first her appeal had its effect. A few of 
the more respectable sort moved shame- 
facedly away, but a rough, noisy group took 
their places until some two hundred people 
clamored loudly for admission into the new 
compound. "Wait until the place is finished 
and we will invite you in," said one of the 
servants. "We are working people," was 
the reply; "we cannot come any other day. 
We intend to come in to-day." 

Just then the cook slipped away unob- 
served, and called the chief of police to the 
scene. But the people paid no attention to 
him; they even laughed at him. So boister- 
ous did they become that the gate-keeper was 



A Chinese Mob 87 

alarmed for Mrs. Gamewell's safety and 
begged her to go inside. As she turned, a 
stone was thrown at her and the crowd 
shouted approval. By combined efforts the 
official and the cook held the mob back until 
she had escaped beyond their reach. 

To Mrs. Gamewell's surprise she found a 
little girl by her side as she crossed the court. 
The child had been drawn to the woman who 
dared face the angry crowd, and followed her 
as she returned to the house. In an eager, 
quivering voice she asked if she might stay 
in the mission, and if sometime she might 
learn to read. The childish tones were a 
soothing contrast to the harsh, shrieking 
voices outside, and her cheery little presence 
was like "a sunbeam shining through a dark 
cloud.' ' 

Scarcely had the door closed upon Mrs. 
Gamewell and the child when the pounding 
at the gate was renewed with added energy. 
What should she do ? At all hazards the place 
must be held until the men returned from the 
city. As her mind sought here and there for 
means of resistance, she thought of the new 
gun recently sent as a gift to her husband. 
There was no ammunition, to be sure, but a 



88 Under Marching Orders 

Chinese mob is cowardly at heart and the 
mere sight of a gun might frighten them 
away. i ' They are in, they are coming, ' ' cried 
the little girl who was watching at the door. 
They had battered down the heavy gate, and 
were pushing roughly within. Mrs. Game- 
well seized her gun and went forth. As soon 
as they saw it there was a general rush for 
the street. Mrs. Gamewell followed as far 
as the gate and stood on guard there while 
one half of the great door was closed and bar- 
ricaded with heavy stones. But the crowd 
quickly perceived that the gun was not loaded, 
and collecting again about Mrs. Gamewell, 
protested against the closing of the other half 
of the gate. 

Again the cook set forth for help, this time 
going for the magistrate. As the mob swayed 
back and forth, moved by varying impulses, 
a man came forward leading a child by 
the hand. Under pretense of being a friend 
whom she failed to recognize, he skilfully 
diverted Mrs. GamewelPs attention. In a 
flash, some one glided from the crowd and 
seized the barrel of the gun, but Mrs. Game- 
well's steady grip was not relaxed. The 
two servants sprang to her aid and with 



A Chinese Mob 89 

all their might pulled on the butt end, while 
as many as could get hold of the barrel tugged 
in the opposite direction. They pounded her 
hands and arms, while the onlookers pelted 
her with mud. Of course there could be but 
one end to the unequal struggle, and the gun 
was borne away in dastardly triumph by the 
mob. 

After the stampede was over Mrs. Game- 
well turned to find the servants looking at her 
in real anxiety. The old gatekeeper had some 
fine tobacco in his hand which he offered to 
tie about her finger. Then for the first time the 
courageous little sentinel became conscious 
of the blood that was flowing from her right 
hand, and which had already stained the 
pavement a dull red. Her forefinger had 
been cut almost to the bone. Mud plastered 
her face and neck, and just below her temple 
a big lump was rising. As soon as the crowd 
saw the blood on her hands and face they fled 
in terror, for to draw blood is a crime. 

Just then the cook returned and said the 
official (P'u-kuan) refused to concern him- 
self with the matter. This was the last straw. 
Mrs. Gamewell sat down alone in the gate and 
for a minute the hot tears came, though in 



90 Under Marching Orders 

truth her grief was more for the lost gun 
than for her own condition. 

After she had bandaged her finger and 
washed off the mud, the magistrate unex- 
pectedly walked in. The disturbance proved 
to be large enough to warrant his attention; 
indeed he might even " lose face" unless some 
action were taken. "Face" is that expressive 
word constantly heard in China, easy to un- 
derstand but hard to define. The Chinese are 
a very ceremonious people, desiring above all 
things to be regarded as "proper," thus so 
long as the outward appearance is correct it 
makes no difference whether the heart of the 
man be true or false. For a Chinese to "lose 
face" is worse than death itself. One way to 
avoid this calamity is to show two faces at 
once, at which difficult art he is an adept. The 
official had the manner of one ridiculing the 
foreigners, as at the same time he dispersed 
the crowd which was entering the court. 

Soon after the magistrate had departed in 
complacent importance, Mr. Gamewell en- 
tered the house. A man had gone to town to 
summon him, and he hastened home in intense 
anxiety. In silence he looked at his wife ; his 
admiration for her pluck and daring exceeded 



A Chinese Mob 91 

only by his keen relief at finding that she was 
not seriously hurt. By and by the doctor 
returned from church and dressed the 
wounded hand. One and all united in doing 
honor to the brave little woman whose nerve 
had saved the premises from being looted. 
Once again she had played the soldier and in 
a very real battle. 

With the help of the British consul in 
Chung-ch'ing, Mr. Gamewell gained access 
to the district magistrate and reported the 
disturbance at the mission compound. The 
official received him courteously, and agreed 
to station a guard temporarily at the gate. 
He would not promise, however, to have the 
ringleaders of the mob punished, and such a 
course was necessary to prevent a second out- 
break. 

Late in the month of June a large number 
of military students from the western prov- 
inces assembled at Chung-ch'ing for exam- 
inations. They were wild, reckless men, 
ready for anything which promised excite- 
ment. At the same time thousands of people 
in the neighborhood were suffering hunger 
on account of the high price of rice, and were 
easily stirred to riot, impelled by the hope 



92 Under Marching Orders 

of plunder. From the western states of 
America came reports which stung like a 
nettle and goaded to revenge. Chinese im- 
migrants were being maltreated and even 
killed in the United States. Treaty rights 
were recklessly violated. Why, in the name 
of the Confucian religion, which at least de- 
mands justice, should Americans be tolerated 
on Chinese soil! Thus in the remote inland 
province of China the little group of Amer- 
icans paid dear for the injustice of their 
fellow countrymen on the other side of the 
world. 

Like a tidal wave of destruction the mob 
bore down upon the foreigners in Chung- 
ch'ing. Nearer and nearer it came, laying 
waste the property of the British consul and 
the Eoman Catholic cathedral, in its resistless 
approach toward the compound in the city, 
where the missionaries had now assembled. 
As a last extremity Mr. Gamewell tried to 
plan an escape by way of the river which 
flowed far below, preferring its precarious 
current to the merciless freaks of the mob. 
But this chance of flight was cut off, for 
already the crowd was at the gate pounding 
and shrieking with a determination far ex- 




to 
< 



A Chinese Mob 93 

ceeding the Sunday of the Dragon Festival. 
Yet the little company of men and women 
within the walls were calm and trustful. Mrs. 
Gamewell said they felt the iron strength of 
the promise: "Lo, I am with you always, 
even unto the end of the world. ■ ' 

At the very instant when the frenzied 
Chinese broke through the barricades at the 
front, an excited messenger came to the rear 
gate bidding the missionaries make haste and 
escape while yet there was time. The magis- 
trate had sent sedan-chairs to bear them to 
his yamen, but they must speed away into the 
darkness before their flight was detected. 
Even as the mob was entering the court they 
slipped out at the rear, and were swiftly 
borne along the precipice overhanging the 
river. 

The weird, silent journey came to a sudden 
pause as the bearers made a quick turn 
through a gate and dropped the chairs before 
a house close by the wall. Into the small, 
stuffy room which the fugitives were com- 
manded to enter, crowded a rabble of Chinese 
who remained to scoff. Trying beyond 
measure was the situation of the foreigners, 
until their guide reappeared and helped them 



94 Under Marching Orders 

force their way through the struggling crowd 
to their chairs at the door. As Mrs. Game- 
welFs turn came, and she took her seat, it 
was discovered that there were no more 
chairs, so Mr. Gamewell must be left behind 
while she was spirited away into the city 
streets. Her last look revealed him in the 
midst of an excited throng which shouted 
boisterously for him to wait, that he could not 
in safety walk across the city to the yamen. 

For Mrs. Gamewell and her companions 
there was another rapid rush along dark 
edges of the street, and a stealthy turn into 
a court where lights were forbidden. They 
were taken into a house and told to ascend a 
ladder which they found led to a windowless 
garret, totally dark and breathlessly hot. 
Silence was charged upon them, and there on 
the floor they sat for two or three hours. It 
seemed endless to Mrs. Gamewell, tortured 
as she was by fears for her husband. But 
she prayed to the God of her strength, and 
seemed to feel the assurance of Mr. Game- 
well's safety. 

At last the door was cautiously opened and 
a messenger brought the official summons of 
the magistrate to his yamen. There was an- 



A Chinese Mob 95 

other hasty ride and the chairs came to a 
halt in a court where Mrs. Gamewell found 
her husband watching anxiously for her com- 
ing. He had been carried directly to the ya- 
men, and was alarmed at not finding her 
there. They met only to be separated at once, 
for Chinese custom demanded that the men 
occupy one court and the women another. 

Mrs. Gamewell and her companions were 
conducted through a series of dimly lighted 
apartments into the room which was to be 
their shelter for the night. Here they spent 
several uneasy hours, sleeping but little and 
not daring to remove their clothes. The 
morning light brought the haunting thought 
that they were homeless, and well-nigh 
friendless, in a city sixteen hundred miles 
from the coast. The mob had demolished 
every foreign house in Chung-ch'ing, having 
first seized as booty the cherished posses- 
sions of those who were strangers among 
them and who would so gladly have been their 
friends. 

During two weeks of suspense, not know- 
ing what an hour might bring forth, the for- 
eigners were kept in the yamen of the chief 
magistrate. From one day to the next they 



96 Under Marching Orders 

knew not whether they would be dispatched 
on the swift currents of the Yang-tzu to the 
coast, or detained as prisoners to await an 
uncertain fate. The magistrate insulted and 
threatened, and with paradoxical insistence 
declared that he was taking care of them. 
"In America they kill Chinese," was his con- 
stant taunt. They were at the mercy of a 
fickle government, but they were also in the 
care of a steadfast God. 

In the night of this racking anxiety Mrs. 
Gamewell's faith shone forth like a star. In 
her diary of July 13th she wrote: "I have 
been reading the book of Daniel. God is 
good. He has drawn us very close to himself 
during these days of trial. Can we wander 
far again? I shall know how his love went 
before us each day and wonder that my eyes 
ever turned away!" 

Two days later, passports for the Amer- 
icans to leave the city were received. The 
magistrate bade his wife supply them with 
black cloth to cover their heads, and Chinese 
clothes to complete their disguise. They 
were to leave the city in the third watch of 
the night. On July 16, these entries were 
made in Mrs. GamewelPs diary: "5.45 a. m. 



A Chinese Mob 07 

Up all night. Feast at 1.00. To boats about 
2.00. Weighed anchor about 5.45. Left in 
darkness. Lanterns swinging in the fog. 
Soldiers seen in the dim streets guarding our 
way down to the boat, soldiers and yamen 
runners guarding and pointing the way. 
Magistrate came down and sat in his chair 
and exhorted the boat captains. So in the 
darkness we steal out of the city whose people 
have torn up every vestige of our home, and 
left us with none of the treasures we brought 
with us two years ago. ' ' 

In exactly four days the two boats rushed 
down the mad currents of the river to 
I-ch'ang, whereas the trip up stream had 
taken four weeks. The difference in time 
tells a story of wild mountain torrents, high 
winds, and daring skill of valiant oarsmen. 

Upon reaching Shanghai Mrs. Gamewell 
went on board the ocean steamer to return 
to the United States. Life in China had 
made heavy inroads upon her splendid health, 
and a rest in the air and freedom of home was 
a necessity. Mr. Gamewell turned his face 
toward Peking, to arrange a settlement with 
the imperial government to pay for the loss 
of property in the Chung-cli' ing riot. 



A CHINESE SUNDAY SCHOOL AND 
A CHINESE CHURCH 



vn 

A CHINESE SUNDAY SCHOOL AND A 
CHINESE CHHECH 

"Faith is nothing else but the soul's venture." 

One year and then another slipped back 
into history until some twenty years had 
passed since Mary Porter had her first vision 
of the gray walls of Peking. Inside those 
walls and ont on the plains beyond, she had 
wrought with all her soul and strength for 
the victory which, though yet invisible, was 
surely to be made real. The joy of master- 
ing the difficult and seemingly impossible 
task had possessed her with its charm. There 
in the heart of dusty, crowded Peking she 
had found the one who joined her in her quest 
of the ideal. Far away inland, in high-built 
Chung-ch'ing, the two la borers in the name 
of their great Chief had laid firm strokes of 
honest effort which survived in triumph the 
wreck and disaster of a day's defeat. Beyond 
the ocean in wide-awake America they 
spent months of enthusiastic interest, profit- 

101 



102 Under Marching Orders 

ing in full measur e by the stir of life, and 
rejoicing in the reunion with old friends. 
Yet persistently their thoughts had turned to 
that other unforgotten home across the seas 
in ancient China. The old call to service in 
the place where the need is greatest, the call 
which had dominated these two since child- 
hood, had again sounded its irresistible note. 
To the utter joy of the man and woman, 
their mission board sent them back to their 
original post of duty in the compound in 
Peking. Mr. Gamewell was assigned his task 
in the university which had grown out of the 
boys' school of pioneer days. Around Mrs. 
Gamewell gathered the women from the 
scattered communities outside Peking, to be 
taught the Bible lessons which she could make 
so vivid and throbbing with life. Her com- 
mand of the Chinese language was so com- 
plete that they often said, "She talks just 
like one of us." From the spell of her per- 
sonality, women of the type of Mrs. Wang 
went forth into the country districts to carry 
light and joy into hundreds of hopeless 
Chinese homes. Thus the influence of one 
shining character reached far and wide in 
northeastern China. 




o 



PQ 



Q 
< 

a 



A Chinese Sunday School 10S 

As the years went on, another work, new 
and promising, was laid in her willing hands. 
It was the wonderful Peking Sunday-school. 
In the beginning the Christian students and 
the servants of the compound were the only 
pupils, but in course of time a few children 
from the neighborhood strayed in. They 
were familiar with the tale that "foreign 
devils" used children's hearts and eyes to 
make medicine ; so, naturally, their approach 
was cautious. About this time a young 
woman from New England joined the mis- 
sion, bringing with her a love for children 
and a quantity of picture cards. To the chil- 
dren from the streets of Peking these cards 
were like leaves from a fairy book. 

Each Sunday groups of small folk 
assembled, until the class became too large 
to meet with the main Sunday-school. It was 
given a room of its own, and speedily that 
room was filled to overflowing. Children 
sat on seats and on the backs of seats ; they 
sat on each other's laps ; they sat on the floor ; 
they sat on the table and under the table. 
The teacher was obliged to take her place 
before the children came in, and when all 
had pressed inside she had just standing- 



104 Under Marching Orders 

room and no more. If visitors called she 
could not move an inch to receive them, nor 
could they go beyond the half-open door. 
They exclaimed, i i Wonderful ! Wonderful ! ' ' 

It was not long before a whole Sunday- 
school was formed of this one class. In the 
morning the Christians of the mission met 
in classes taught by the missionaries. In the 
afternoon the children of the city and any 
adults who cared to come formed a second 
Sunday-school, the pupils of the forenoon 
becoming the teachers of the afternoon. Just 
here a catastrophe loomed up before them. 
The supply of cards would soon be exhausted ! 
An urgent letter was sent to America asking 
that small packages of cards be dispatched 
at once by mail, and boxes sent by freight 
later. 

From Maine to Maryland, and from the 
Atlantic to the Mississippi this letter was 
read and answered. Packages of all shapes 
and sizes were received by the missionary in 
Tientsin whose duty it was to forward the 
mail to Peking. Usually he employed a 
courier and one donkey for the purpose, but 
when the cards began to crowd the bags, he 
had to hire three donkeys for the enlarged 



A Chinese Sunday School 105 

postal service. In the spring the boxes 
arrived, and before summer there was a room 
in the mission solidly packed with boxes, bags 
and barrels of cards. 

The new Sunday-school grew as the class 
had grown. The mission chapel seated four 
hundred, but often five hundred children 
were present. A group sat on the altar steps, 
others were held on the knees of their com- 
panions, and still there were those who had 
to stand throughout the session. Many of 
them came shivering in grimy rags of cloth- 
ing. Among them were some " pinched-f aced 
little f oiks " who sometimes bartered the cher- 
ished cards for food. One cold day Mrs. 
Gamewell saw a child not more than six years 
of age give a card to a pedler while he put in 
her hands a cup of hot soup. Most of the chil- 
dren came from homes in comparison with 
which the chapel was ' ' a paradise of warmth 
and cheer. " For them the Sunday-school 
hour was the one bit of color in seven gloomy 
days. At noon on Sunday groups of children 
began to gather in Filial Piety Lane, until at 
three o 'clock, when the bell rang, a small mul- 
titude pressed through the gate. And these 
were the same children who had once scam- 



106 Under Marching Orders 

pered away in fright whenever the queer for- 
eigner came toward them. 

A second trouble threatened, and at the 
same time a great hope dawned in Mrs. 
GamewelPs boundless horizon of purpose. 
The mission chapel was unmistakably on the 
verge of collapse. The walls had already 
cracked, and now they were bulging as if 
ready to crumble. The heavy tiled roof 
leaned dangerously. Stays were put against 
the walls and extra supports under the roof. 
The days of the old chapel were numbered 
with fatal certainty. Thereupon Mrs. Game- 
well dreamed a dream and set herself to work 
out its achievement. Her first move was to 
send a letter to the mission board in New 
York. This is what she wrote : 

"We are in trouble. Let me tell you our 
trouble, and please help us. The mission 
chapel is giving way. We began to prop and 
mend it a year ago, but now the walls lean 
worse, the cracks are wider, and the timbers 
bend more threateningly. If you could stand 
by the old weather-beaten chapel and hear its 
history, so interwoven with all the mission's 
joys and sorrows, and its hopes past and 
future, and realize how much depends upon 



A Chinese Sunday School 107 

our mission chapel, your voice would ring out 
with energy of speech and song that would 
win for us the help we need. It is no shame 
for the chapel to fall. It has stood nearly 
twenty years and cost only two thousand 
dollars when it was built. We knew it could 
not be long-lived because there was not money 
enough to build substantially. It is now the 
oldest building in the mission/ ' 

The letter further told of the Sunday- 
school, unique in all China for its size and 
character. If the church should fall in ruins, 
what would become of the hundreds of chil- 
dren who gathered within its tottering walls 
each Sabbath afternoon? 

"Do you understand what it would mean 
to shut our gates for weeks and months with 
no promise as to the near future? Suspicion 
would follow disappointment, and the Chinese 
would think we had ceased to want them in 
our chapel, reasoning in the same way as 
when, believing all missionaries to be doctors, 
they think we do not cure their diseases be- 
cause we do not want to. Work so slowly 
built up would fall to pieces before our eyes 
and we would be powerless to help. 

"Besides the Sunday-school, every other 



108 Under Marching Orders 

department of our Peking work depends in a 
measure upon the chapel. The university 
students meet there for morning prayers. 
Preaching services and prayer-meetings 
depend upon it. The chapel is the only 
assembly-room for funerals and weddings. 
Christmas is celebrated there. There is no 
place for commencement exercises but in the 
chapel. What will become of these interests 
if the chapel falls? When it was built its 
size seemed so out of proportion to the num- 
bers assembled, and the work then under way, 
that our friends remarked: 'You must have 
great faith to build so large a house with any 
hope of filling it.' The faith has been 
rewarded. The work has so outgrown the 
chapel accommodations that for several years 
we have felt the need of a large church, but 
schools and country work have been in such 
urgent straits, and we need such a big church 
next time one is built, that we have delayed 
asking for an appropriation, hoping that the 
time might come when we could ask, with a 
hope of receiving it, about ten thousand dol- 
lars to build a church that would answer mis- 
sion purposes for the next twenty years. If 
you find it in your power to help us to a new 



A Chinese Sunday School 109 

church, you will be sending a broad beam of 
cheer into the shadows, that will lift us up and 
strengthen us to a degree that perhaps you 
little imagine.' ' 

Mrs. Gamewell 's letter was a challenge 
which some large-hearted people in America 
could not refuse to accept. By return mail 
the first instalment of a large sum of money 
was forwarded to Peking, and later, while on 
a furlough in America, Mr. Gamewell secured 
the help of a competent architect to prepare 
plans for the new church. They were build- 
ing, as they thought, for twenty years at 
least, and the workmanship must be substan- 
tial. A structure made of brick and wood, 
with seating capacity for fifteen hundred, was 
designed, and Mr. Gamewell returned to 
Peking to superintend its erection. 

In course of time the wonderful new build- 
ing was completed and christened Asbury 
Church. It was the architectural pride of 
the compound, and also the largest Protes- 
tant church in the whole empire. Almost, 
immediately the Sunday-school sent its regi- 
ments of children down the aisles and into the 
seats of the auditorium. By this time the 
.school had become so famous that travelers 



110 Under Marching Orders 

visited it as one of the sights of Peking, In- 
variably their comment was : l ' There is noth- 
ing like it in China. ' ' 

In place of the old mocking cry, "foreign 
devil," which Mrs. Gamewell had learned to 
expect every time she ventured beyond the 
gate of the compound, children on every side 
wistfully inquired: "Teacher, teacher, how 
many days to next Sunday?" From the 
walled courts of Chinese houses could be 
heard on the streets childish voices singing 
"Jesus loves me," "There's a land that is 
fairer than day," and other songs which Mrs. 
Gamewell had taught them. Do you wonder 
that her hands and brain and heart were full 
of eager work and abundant joy in these 
golden years in the mission in Peking? 



THE CENTER OF THE CHINESE 
PUZZLE 



m 



vm 

• THE CENTEE OF THE CHINESE 
PUZZLE 

"O, East is East and West is West, and never the twain 

shall meet, 
Till earth and sky stand presently at God's great judgment 

seat; 
But there is neither East nor West, border nor breed nor 

birth, 
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come 

from the ends of the earth." 

It is likely that you have seen one of those 
stolid, wooden Dutch dolls, and that yon have 
taken it apart only to find another within, and 
so on down to the last doll of the series. Or 
surely you have handled those soft, pliable 
baskets, each one of which in succession fits 
like magic into the next larger in size. If you 
have experimented with any of these objects 
within objects, you will understand the con- 
struction of the northern city of Peking. It 
is a city within a city, within a third city; 
each enclosed by its own wall; the outside 
wall being sixteen miles in circumference. 
Within the Tartar city is the Imperial City 
and within the Imperial is the Forbidden 

113 



114 Under Marching Orders 

City. These three cities were built in the 
thirteenth century by that famous Mongol 
invader, who lives anew in the imagination 
of him who reads the poem of Coleridge which 
bears the hero's name, "Kublai Khan." 
Just south of the Tartar city is the Chinese 
city, the original Peking, which came into 
being some three thousand years ago. Like 
a pedestal to a statue, it serves as a base to 
the more imposing structure of the Tartar 
city. 

Thus Peking entire consists of four cities 
in one. About twenty-five miles of grim, 
gray wall surround the whole. At intervals 
of two or three miles are the massive iron- 
bound gates, each gate surmounted by a three- 
storied tower, rectangular in shape. Around 
and through the city runs an ancient canal 
with water-gates. Trains of camels from the 
deserts of the north carry their Mongol riders 
through the streets. Mule litters, slung be- 
tween poles, the red sedan-chair of the bride 
and the white chair in the procession of the 
dead, the approach of each heralded by music, 
carts and wheelbarrows, horses ridden by 
foreigners, and "darting, dodging pedes- 
trians' ' vie with one another for passage 



The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 115 

through the crowded thoroughfares. Green- 
tiled temples, with their gray-gowned priests, 



TARTAR 



I MPERIAL 
CI TY 



7 



n 



Forbid- 
den 

City 



i 



c I 



T Y 



C H I 
C 



N E 5 E 
I T Y 



Peking, a City Within a City 

stand at ease and in musty splendor. And in 
the center of all this strange life rise the pink 
walls of the Forbidden City, shielding from 



116 Under Marching Orders 

ruthless eyes the royal palace buildings. For 
its myriad forms of life, its aneient magnifi- 
cence, its brooding mystery, Peking becomes 
indeed the "goal which beckons to every 
one. ' ' 

In 1644, when the early settlers were break- 
ing soil in America, the long line of Chinese 
monarchs gave way before the oldtime foe 
from the north, and the Manchu Tartars 
claimed the Dragon throne. Unto this day 
they have been the royal family of China, 
calling their reign the Ch'in or Great Pure 
Dynasty. 

During the years when Mr. and Mrs. Game- 
well lived in the southeastern corner of the 
Tartar city, where most of the foreigners had 
their dwellings, the greatest of the Manchu 
rulers was secluded behind the vermilion 
pillars and underneath the green and gold 
ceilings of the royal palace. It was the em- 
press dowager, or as she might be called, the 
Chinese sphinx. A perplexing puzzle has 
she been to the thousands of Westerners who 
have lived in her realm, and to those who, 
across the seas, have read of her strange 
deeds. It is a question if the Chinese them- 
selves have understood her perverse freaks 



The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 117 

or have been prepared for her sudden, mad 
whims. People have held the most curiously 
diverse opinions regarding her. Some have 
called her the " grand old woman" of China, 
while others have likened her to heartless, 
brutal Catherine of Kussia. She might have 
been a composite of Queen Jezebel and 'Queen 
Elizabeth, this capricious and yet far-sighted 
woman, who held sway over one fourth of the 
human race. 

The empress dowager was the daughter of 
a Manchu soldier of high rank, though not of 
royal descent. Since she was a Tartar 
maiden, her feet were not bound. Her hair 
and eyes were black, and her skin a rich 
olive. A kind of fiery intelligence shone in 
her face. 

As she grew into womanhood, the emperor, 
Hsien Feng, chose her for one of his wives. 
When a son was born in the West Palace 
where Tzu Hsi lived, the emperor, contrary 
to all custom, advanced the mother to the 
position of empress, by the side of the reign- 
ing empress. At the death of the emperor, 
the boy T'ung Chih succeeded his father, and 
the two empresses were appointed joint re- 
gents. In 1875 T'ung Chih died, and his 



118 Under Marching Orders 

cousin Kuang Hsu was selected by the council 
of princes as the new ruler of China. When 
four years old he climbed with true imperial 
dignity into the "chair of state." His sub- 
jects bowed low before him, knocking their 
heads on the ground in token of loyalty. In 
1881 the empress of the East Palace died, 
and empress dowager Tzu Hsi became sole 
regent. 

When Kuang Hsii reached the age of nine- 
teen, according to the Chinese reckoning 
which counts a child a year old at birth, a 
decree was issued to the effect that her 
majesty the empress dowager considered him 
fit to rule. Upon this not wholly flattering 
declaration, he said (or was made to say) 
that "the announcement caused him to 
tremble as if in mid-ocean, with no knowl- 
edge of the land." After uttering these 
sentiments befitting a modest young emperor, 
Kuang Hsii mounted the throne, and the 
empress dowager withdrew behind the scenes, 
to await the cue for her reappearance on the 
stage of action. 

Now it afterwards appeared that Kuang 
Hsii had a mind of his own, and for some 
years he had his way in the ancient em- 



The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 119 

pire, in spite of his contriving aunt. It was 
due to the presence of the wide-awake West- 
erner in the sleepy Eastern world, that he be- 
came the youthful and hot-headed reformer, 
who for a brief time was a striking figure in 
Chinese affairs. When he was a small boy, 
humored and indulged by the palace attend- 
ants, a store was opened on Legation Street 
in the foreign quarter of Peking, which ac- 
tually had something to do with the life story 
of the emperor and his empire. The royal 
boy loved toys, and the more complex they 
were the more delighted was he, particularly 
if he could take them to pieces to see what 
made "the wheels go wound." His rooms 
were filled with watches which could strike 
the hour, eccentric clocks which would strike 
to music, or from which a bird would emerge 
and announce the time in his own character- 
istic call. 

As the boy grew older, tales of unending 
wonder reached his ever-open ears; tales of 
the telegraph and telephone, the electric and 
steam cars of the Western world. Naught 
would content the imperious lad until a small 
railroad was built along the shore of the 
beautiful Lotus Lake in the palace grounds. 



120 Under Marching Orders 

Official messengers were sent to Peking Uni- 
versity, refusing to return to the palace with- 
out the coveted " talk-box' ' (phonograph) of 
which the emperor had heard. Grapho- 
phones, X-ray apparatus, and everything 
known to modern inventive genius were 
sought by the curious young ruler. 

Soon he began to grant permission to for- 
eign companies to build railroads, to estab- 
lish telephone and telegraph systems, and 
to operate steamship lines. Slow-going 
officials in distant parts of the empire were 
shocked beyond recovery to receive imperial 
edicts in the form of telegrams. Formerly, 
stately documents written with the vermilion 
pencil on yellow paper were delivered by 
courtly couriers who spent a month on the 
journey. Ignorant peasants believed that 
the rusty rain-water dripping from the wires 
was the blood of outraged spirits who would 
take speedy revenge. In the province of Hu- 
nan they sawed down the poles and cut the 
wires. The "fire-wheel cart" (steam engine) 
was rudely disturbing the earth dragon and 
would bring sure disaster upon the land. 
When the railway from Tientsin to Peking 
was built in 1897, peasants and coolies firmly 



The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 121 

believed that the piers of the bridge over the 
Pei Ho, as well as the sleepers for the entire 
eighty miles of track, were laid on the bodies 
of Chinese infants. Verily the enterprising 
Kuang Hsii was upsetting the peace of mind 
of his subjects, and his day of reckoning was 
drawing nigh. 

When the empress dowager reached her 
sixtieth year of age, the Christian women of 
China, about eleven thousand in number, sent 
an edition of the New Testament, printed in 
large type, and bound in silver and gold, as 
a birthday gift to her majesty. Soon after 
the casket containing the present had been 
delivered at the palace, Kuang Hsii sent 
messengers to the American Bible Society to 
procure copies of the Bible for himself. In 
the compound in Filial Piety Lane the wel- 
come news was heard that yonder in the For- 
bidden City the emperor was studying the 
Bible daily, that he was learning to pray, and 
that he was willing to have Christianity 
taught in his wide domains. The mission- 
aries hoped that the openmindedness of the 
young ruler would infuse new sap and life 
into the old, withered empire of China. 

Kuang Hsu's next move was to reach out 



122 Under Marching Orders 

for all the foreign books which had been 
translated into the Chinese language. He 
collected every book on education, science, 
and religion, published in the land. For three 
years he pored over his books, and as a result, 
issued his edicts of reform — those edicts 
which made the people sit up and rub their 
eyes and finally start forth in vigorous 
protest. 

The first decree established a great, central 
university in Peking, of which one of the mis- 
sionaries was invited to become president. 
In all the colleges and universities founded 
by Kuang Hsu, the presidents were men who 
went to China as missionaries. They were 
the keenest scholars among the foreigners, 
and also knew China and her people most 
closely. Throughout the spring and summer 
of 1898, edict after edict proceeded in sharp 
succession from the throne. One proclaimed 
that schools should be founded in every im- 
portant city, another, that Buddhist temples 
should be turned into schoolhouses. 

Kuang Hsu became impatient if his com- 
mands were not carried out at once. In his 
enthusiasm he forgot that great reforms do 
not come in a day, even in a lifetime, no 




TZU 

HSI 

TUAN 

YU 

KANG 

I 

CHAO 

YU 

CHUAMG 

CHENG 

SHOU 

KUNG 

CHIN 

HSIEN 

CHUNG 

SHIH 



Empress Dowager 
(From a Painting) 



The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 123 

matter if the heart of the reformer breaks in 
the delay. If only he could have possessed 
that sure vision of the future, together with 
a mighty patience such as dominated Mrs. 
Gamewell and her associates, he might have 
been the prophet soul who led his people out 
of darkness into light. But that type of 
leadership belongs to the Christian faith, and 
Kuang Hsu was just emerging out of hea- 
thenism. In a tumultuous time he stood for 
what he believed, and that is the beginning 
of heroism. The trouble was he had 
attempted to do what Mr. Kipling calls 
"hustling the East." It was as if he had 
sought to make the slow-moving camels of the 
desert travel with the speed of a Western 
mail train. 

At this dramatic moment the empress dow- 
ager appeared again on the scene of action. 
In sullen resentment at being set aside, she 
had been amusing herself with her flowers 
and boats in I Ho park. But now she would 
once more play her part in the exciting events 
of her country's history. A number of dis- 
satisfied officials and imperial clansmen 
rallied round her, and plotted the over- 
throw of Kuang Hsu. Hearing of the con- 



124 Under Marching Orders 

spiracy, he tried to outwit them, but a trusted 
official betrayed him into the hands of his 
enemies, and the new day for China came to 
a sudden, stormy close. Kuang Hsu was 
dethroned and practically made a prisoner in 
an island palace. The empress dowager be- 
came the ruler of the nation. Upon the down- 
fall of Kuang Hsu trouble for the foreigners 
began. 

With the spitefulness of the old Greek 
Furies, the empress Tzu Hsi set herself to 
undo all that Kuang Hsu had done. The 
official newspaper, Peking Gazette, fairly 
"bristled* ' with her angry edicts. She 
crushed every reform measure which had 
come into existence. The young man who 
was the chief adviser of Kuang Hsu barely 
escaped to Tientsin and then by steamer 
south. For more than a year the empress 
offered large rewards for his capture, alive 
or dead. Because her wrath failed to reach 
this leading offender, she seized his younger 
brother and ordered his execution. On Sep- 
tember 28, 1898, he, with five other young 
men, was beheaded; six martyrs who gave 
their lives for the future liberty of their 
country. As they went to their death, they 



The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 125 

declared that multitudes of others would 
some day arise to take their places. 

It was not long before the eagle eye of the 
empress dowager was turned toward the for- 
eigners, the cause of all this upheaval in 
the old, placid empire. Who had ever desired 
their presence in the celestial kingdom? 
They had come to trade, and the Chinese, 
though born traders, scorned the practise as 
far below their scholarly dignity. They had 
also come to entice China into that bond which 
exists between all civilized countries, the 
"sisterhood of nations. " But China, like a 
blind, foolish child, preferred to be let alone. 
She hated the very word "treaty/' for it 
meant that she had been forced into relations 
with people whose manner of life she spurned. 
"When a thing is as good as it can be, you 
cannot make it any better. ' ' This was exactly 
what nearly all the people of China thought 
concerning their country. 

Moreover the foreigner was responsible 
for these detested reforms. And worse yet, 
some of the European nations, particularly 
Germany, were trying to seize Chinese ter- 
ritory and call it their own. From a Chinese 
point of view, the foreigners were bent on 



126 Under Marching Orders 

devouring China piecemeal. What could the 
Dragon do but turn upon his enemies ? 

Thus the dowager empress let her wild 
fury run away with her reason. Down deep 
in her heart she knew that her country owed 
a vast deal to outside nations, but her intelli- 
gence went down before her childish peevish- 
ness and her lust for power. The only way 
to keep the Manchus on the throne was to side 
with the conservatives against the foreigner. 
And so the explosion, which this woman by a 
single stroke of the vermilion pencil could 
have prevented, burst in a whirl of frenzy 
about the foreigners and Chinese Christians. 

In the neighboring province of Shan-tung, 
a famous secret society, of which there are 
many in China, was drilling its troops, thus 
making ready to rout all foreigners out of 
China, perhaps even the Manchu rulers them- 
selves. Buddhist temples were turned into 
camps, and excited men were practising 
strange rites in every village. The organ- 
ization was known as the I Ho Ch'iian (Fists 
of Eighteous Harmony), or the Great Sword 
Society. As the Chinese word for "fists" 
signifies wrestling or boxing, they became 
known as Boxers. 




08 
H 

o 

08 
O 
fa 

H 
X 






fa 



u 



< 

fa 



o 
PQ 




o 
PQ 



The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 127 

They claimed that supernatural power was 
granted them and that neither swords nor 
bullets could inflict injury. In the temples 
of the gods they went into spasms and 
trances, in order to become possessed with 
the spirit of some hero long since dead. 
Sundry charms were repeated to protect them 
against gun, cannon, and sword. "Face to 
the southeast, with left hand perform the 
Three Mountain charm, with the right per- 
form the Twisted Dragon, mark on ground 
two crosses, tread with two feet — read the 
charm once, follow with one knocking of head 
— at least read seven times, at most ten times. 
The gods will then take possession of your 
body. ' f This and similar exercises were sup- 
posed to make the charm take effect. Then 
it was that "the gods and the 8,000,000 spir- 
its" would come to their aid "to sweep the 
empire clean of all foreigners." 

" Until the foreigner is exterminated, the rain oan never 
visit us." 

"Within three years all will be accomplished." 

"The Volunteer Associated Fists will burn down the foreign 
buildings. Foreign goods of every variety they will de- 
stroy. They will extirpate the evil demons, and establish 
right teaching, — the honor of the spirits and the sages." 

"Scholars and gentlemen must by no means esteem this a 
light and idle curse, and so disregard its warning." 



128 Under Marching Orders 

These were phrases on some of the Boxer 
posters, circulated freely in northeastern 
China. The Boxer flag contained four dread 
characters: "Pao Ch'ing Mieh Yang" 
("Protect the empire: exterminate foreign- 
ers"). Eed cloth was at a premium, since it 
was the sign of revolt, and was in great 
demand as a Boxer emblem. 

Close upon the capital city the Boxer hosts 
pressed. The whole region between Pao-ting 
fu and Peking was covered with Boxer 
camps. About the city of Cho-chou, thirty 
thousand Boxers were assembled, practising 
their magic rites by day, and by night eating 
the farmers of the neighborhood out of house 
and home. They burned railroad stations 
and tore up the tracks, burned and looted 
property, and even killed Chinese Christians. 
And at last Boxer troops were drilling 
within the walls of Peking, even on the 
official drill-grounds, and in the palaces of 
the nobles. In a few short weeks, the Boxers 
had become the "men of the hour." 

Were the foreigners sleeping, that they 
did not realize danger was so close? Or did 
they lean upon the word of that two-faced 
empress who assured them that the Boxer 



The Center of the Chinese Puzzle 129 

movement was naught but the work of boys 
and peasants? Count no more upon that 
fickle ruler who promises but does not fulfil ! 
Her mind was now made up, and the die was 
cast for the doom of the foreigner. Was it 
that the Boxer uprising was a dangerous 
force to be reckoned with, and unless it was 
directed against the foreigner it might turn 
against the Manchu dynasty, and the dowager 
empress would lose both "face" and power? 
Between these alternatives it did not take 
long to choose, and she hesitated not a 
moment. 

Meanwhile, what has become of Mrs. Game- 
well in the midst of all this furor and excite- 
ment? Let us brave the taunts of "foreign 
devil" which will bear down upon us like a 
chorus of curses, and walk boldly through 
the streets of Peking to the compound in 
Filial Piety Lane. 



BOXERS AND BARRICADES 



131 



IX 
BOXEES AND BAKRICADES 

"A glorious company, the flower of men, 
To serve as model for the mighty world, 
And be the fair beginning of a time." 

On the peak of the dome of Asbury Church, 
in the compound of the Methodist mission, a 
solitary figure was outlined against the sky. 
The Boxers in the streets below gazed warily 
up at the unwonted presence. In their camps 
the story was told and believed, that a strange 
being had come from America and alighted 
upon the tower of the church. Further drill 
in magic would be necessary to give them 
power to cope with this mysterious guardian 
of the foreigners. 

"What they saw was in reality the sentinel, 
who, in the heat of day and the dew of night, 
kept unbroken watch of the enemies' move- 
ments. In the space of a few days, the beauti- 
ful church in which Mrs. Game well worked 
had been converted into a citadel of war. 
Bricks had been piled upon the iron roof to 
be hurled upon the foe in case of direct 

133 



134 Under Marching Orders 

attack. The doors had been strengthened 
by galvanized iron plates. Panes of glass 
had been removed from the windows, and 
the space barricaded with bricks, and loop- 
holed. Since it was possible that the dwell- 
ing-houses might be burned, trunks were 
borne to the church for safe-keeping. Some 
one said that the " grand trunk" line ran 
everywhere, from the vestibule through 
every aisle even to the platform itself. On 
the floor in front of the pulpit stood a 
row of jars large as barrels, and filled to 
the brim with water. The water had been 
purified by boiling in huge caldrons on fur- 
naces built in the court. On two memorable 
Sundays, the preacher was surrounded by 
cans of butter, hundreds of boiled eggs, 
stacks of Chinese biscuits, cases of condensed 
milk, as well as baby cradles and mattresses 
innumerable. All these preparations had 
been made against the day when the people 
should have to take refuge within the church, 
and there join in one last desperate fight for 
their lives. 

Across the streets in front and at the rear 
of the church, barricades had been con- 
structed. Bricks for all these hasty fortifica- 




Scenes in the Methodist Compound 
Barbed Wire in Front of Asbury Church 
Captain Hall and the Key 

The Auditorium as a Storehouse 
On Guard 



Boxers and Barricades 135 

tions had been taken from walls and parti- 
tions, and sometimes had to be transported 
from one end of the mission area to the other. 
Boys and women carried piles of bricks on 
their clasped hands, or in baskets swung on 
poles over their shoulders. Wee children 
toddled along, each carrying one, two, three 
bricks according to his size. All the flag tiles 
from the court pavements had been uprooted 
and used for cross barricades. Deep ditches 
had been dug, and first and second lines of 
defense marked out. Barbed-wire fences 
bristled behind walls likely to be scaled. The 
gates, except the one needed for entrance and 
exit, had been solidly covered with brickwork. 
These means of protection had been 
planned and directed by Mr. Gamewell, who 
was a general by instinct as well as a civil 
engineer by training. Twenty marines, under 
command of Captain Hall, had been sent by 
Mr. Conger, the United States minister in 
Peking, as a military guard for the com- 
pound, which had become a refuge for scores 
of missionaries and native Christians. Mrs. 
Gamewell said that " their hearts beat high 
with patriotic pride when they saw the boys 
in blue march through the gates.' ' 



136 Under Marching Orders 

At dusk of the day previous to the arrival 
of the marines, the 8th of June, the other 
mission compounds in Peking had been 
abandoned, and the missionaries with their 
Chinese adherents had sought the shelter of 
the Methodist compound. In the darkness of 
night, a long line of carts bore the fugitives 
from the Congregational mission at T'ung- 
chou to Peking. Within three days their 
deserted buildings were looted and burned 
by the very soldiers sent to protect them. 
Hundreds of Christians and servants of 
foreigners were massacred within two miles 
of the palace buildings. Heartbreaking 
stories were told by the refugees who stag- 
gered each day into the courts of the Metho- 
dist mission. Homes had been burned, 
families separated in the desperate flight for 
life, and a cruel death had overtaken multi- 
tudes. In all, seventy British and American 
missionaries, and nearly seven hundred 
Chinese Christians, filled every inch of 
space in the compound in Filial Piety 
Lane. Boxer mobs blew their horns and 
uttered their demoniacal howls outside the 
gates, while within, twenty American marines 
constituted the entire military protection. 



Boxers and Barricades 137 

One great hope colored all these unquiet 
days. On the 10th of June, in response to a 
telegram from Peking asking for more troops, 
several hundred foreign soldiers, led by Cap- 
tain McCalla, had fought their way to the 
railway train, and had left Tientsin for 
Peking. The arrival of this relief army was 
daily, hourly expected. In the center of the 
compound, a large tree, the play-house of the 
children in days of peace, was used as a bul- 
letin board. Every scrap of news from the 
outside world was posted on the trunk of the 
1 ' giant tree. ? ' But the ' ' outside world ? ' was 
rapidly drifting beyond reach. Telegraph 
lines had been cut in all directions, save the 
single wire to Kalgan on the Great Wall. 
When that last thread of connection was 
broken, Peking was isolated indeed. 

On the 13th of June, the following letter 
from the United States minister, Mr. Conger, 
was read from the tree bulletin : ' ' My dear 
Mr. Gamewell: A note just received from 
Captain McCalla, written at four p. m., yes- 
terday, reports him with sixteen hundred 
men of all nationalities at Lang-fang [thirty 
miles from Peking], pushing on as fast as 
they can repair the road. " That was the last 



138 Under Marching Orders 

message received from the advancing army 
for many a weary day. 

On the afternoon of the same day, the 
Methodist street chapel, a few hundred 
yards away, outside the compound, was 
demolished by the mob. The usual Boxer 
method was to tear down a part of the frame- 
work, pour thereon quart after quart of 
kerosene, and then apply the torch. Through- 
out the night, Mrs. Gamewell, with a group 
of anxious watchers, looked out upon the 
flaming, fearful sky. It was red with the 
reflection of burning buildings. Two old his- 
toric cathedrals belonging to the Eoman Cath- 
olic Church were utterly destroyed, many 
Christians dying in the fire. All the property 
in Peking which belonged to the foreigners, 
except that defended by foreign troops, was 
burned to ashes, either during that night of 
destruction, or within the next few days. A 
veritable fire demon seemed to possess the 
Boxers, and to spur them to madness. 

On the 16th, the climax of the great burn- 
ing was reached. Wild flames leaped up 
from the other side of the southern wall, near 
the Ch'ien, the gate through which, twice 
each year, the emperor rides forth in his 



Boxers and Barricades 139 

elephant cart on his way to worship in the 
temple of Heaven in the southern city. In 
this locality were the huge banking estab- 
lishments, fur stores, and the wealthiest 
business houses in Peking. The Boxer mob 
had set fire to a mill in the neighborhood, and 
the high wind drove the flames beyond their 
control. In terror they cried to the fire god 
to intercede and spare the great tower on 
the wall above the city gate. The tower rose 
more than one hundred feet above the ground, 
and was speedily a tall pillar of fire, piercing 
the sky with its shaft of flame. The loss from 
this one fire was computed to be at least 
$5,000,000. 

Close to the wall in the southern city, wild 
hordes of Boxers made the night hideous 
with their fiendish noise: "Kill the foreign 
devil! Kill! Kill! Kill!" Only a handful 
of unreliable Manchu guards and the iron 
gate intervened between the murderous mob 
and the foreigners a few rods away in the 
northern city. Bealizing this, the committee 
in charge of the compound went at nightfall 
to the gate, interviewed the official, and won 
his promise to close the gate early, and refuse 
to open it to the mob. To make doubly sure, 



140 Under Marching Orders 

this daring committee actually requested that 
after the gate was locked the key should be 
brought to the mission compound and left 
there until morning. The gate-keeper con- 
sented to the amazing proposition, and the 
bar of iron two feet long was in Captain 
Hall's keeping each night as long as the mis- 
sion premises were occupied! 

During these first feverish nights, sleep 
wandered far from Mrs. GamewelPs eyes. 
Every instant of the daylight was tense with 
hard work, and the darkness should naturally 
have brought exhaustion and rest. Instead, 
an excitement which she said was like calm- 
ness, drove weariness and sleep to the winds. 
In the depths of the night and in the heart of 
the moonlight, she watched the stars and 
stripes float in easy grace from the roof of 
the church. She walked with the sentinel on 
his beat and led him on to talk of home, or of 
his life in the Philippines. In these wakeful 
hours began that staunch comradeship with 
the soldiers which made her their friend and 
heroine through all the dark days to come. 

After two or three nights of such vigil, 
sleep claimed its own, and Mrs. Game well 
was led by a friend into a quiet corner for 



Boxers and Barricades 141 

her sorely needed rest. The deep sleep of 
utter exhaustion conquered, and it was some 
hours before she awoke in the midst of an 
ominous stillness. She hastened to a window 
and accosted a soldier who was passing that 
way. He told her that the alarm had been 
given, and all the people except the guards 
were shut inside the church. A stout barri- 
cade with a closed gate was between her and 
the church. There she was, alone with the 
fighting men in the exposed front of battle, 
if battle there should be. But the threatening 
mob drifted gradually away from the gates 
of the compound, and that danger was past. 
After this forlorn experience of Mrs. 
GamewelPs, a more thorough organization 
was completed in the mission camp. Origi- 
nally the bell in the tower had rung out the 
alarms. Soon it was found expedient to have 
a quieter signal, such as would give no inkling 
to the foe outside of the preparations within. 
Consequently, women sentinels were sta- 
tioned on the verandas, each for a watch of 
two hours' duration. If an attack seemed 
imminent, a soldier was to warn one of these 
sentinels, who would spread the word 
throughout the compound, until each and all 



142 Under Marching Orders 

had taken their places in the silent, swiftly 
moving line to the church. This was the plan 
in operation on the night when Mrs. Game- 
well was sleeping her first long sleep since 
the siege began. When it was discovered 
that a person could be overlooked in the or- 
derly confusion, a new kind of guard was 
appointed. In each house some one was des- 
ignated, whose duty it was to make sure that 
no one was left behind in the general exodus 
to the church. 

As the heat of those summer days grew 
more stifling, Mrs. Gamewell looked sym- 
pathetically at the marines clad in their 
heavy winter uniforms. The order for shore 
duty had come suddenly one day while they 
were at dinner on board the war-ships. 
There was not a moment for change of cloth- 
ing, as the call to Peking was imperative. In 
this emergency Mrs. Gamewell 's ready brain 
conceived a scheme whereby the sweltering 
soldiers should be relieved. With money 
solicited from the missionaries, an armed 
group of Chinese and foreigners was dis- 
patched into the nearby street to purchase 
light-weight material from the stores which 
had not vet been abandoned. Yards and 



Boxers and Barricades 143 

yards of navy blue drilling, and dozens and 
dozens of brass buttons were procured, and 
the women set busily to work. A suit of Mr. 
Game well's was ripped to pieces for a pat- 
tern. Two women did the cutting, while 
several basted. Mrs. Gamewell acted as 
fitter, taking the garments to the soldiers' 
headquarters, and pinning and fitting until 
each suit was adjusted to its prospective 
owner. For Mrs. Gamewell, as she said, 
1 ' there was patriotic fervor in the pinning of 
every pin that pinned the seams of those gar- 
ments of blue, fervor born of the fires kindled 
during the war that raged in girlhood days, 
when our town on the Mississippi was always 
a-flutter with flags, and full of arriving and 
departing troops.'' 

At first the soldiers were so eager to don 
their new uniforms, that suits delivered at 
headquarters were instantly appropriated, 
regardless of fit. Such genuine appreciation 
was gratifying to be sure, but the results 
were not wholly to the credit of the fitter. 
Thereafter a piece of white cloth was sewed 
upon each suit, indicating the man for whom 
it was intended. The finished suit was of 
regulation type; a close fitting jacket with 



144 Under Marching Orders 

four pockets, a row of brass buttons and a 
standing collar. When the cartridge belt was 
added, the effect was quite the same as if a 
tailor had done the work. 

On the 19th of June a startling letter was 
delivered to Mr. Gamewell by a swift runner 
from the United States Legation. The letter 
read as follows: 

u 'My dear Mr. Gamewell: 

The Chinese Government has notified us 
that the admirals at Taku have notified the 
viceroy that they will take possession of all 
the Taku forts to-morrow. This they con- 
sider a declaration of war by all the powers, 
and hence tender the ministers their pass- 
ports, and ask us to leave Peking in twenty- 
four hours. We have replied that we know 
nothing of this, but if the Chinese desire to 
act upon such information, and declare war 
themselves, that of course, we will go as soon 
as they will furnish us the necessary trans- 
portation, and send reliable escorts to take us 
all to Tientsin. Sincerely yours, 

E. H. Conger." 

For weeks an impressive fleet of foreign 
warships had been anchored at the mouth of 



Boxers and Barricades 145 

the Pei Ho, or North Biver, where the Taku 
forts commanded entrance to the river. 
It had been impossible for the admirals to 
decide what the next move should be, since it 
could not be determined whether the Chinese 
government meant war or not. At last, when 
word came that Peking was utterly cut off, 
that Boxers and the imperial troops were 
uniting, that an unknown Chinese army was 
contending the advance of Captain McCalla 
and the relief column, and that the Pei Ho 
was being mined with torpedoes, then it was 
that the Allied Forces swung into action. 
Early in the morning of June 17th they 
stormed the Taku forts, and after six hours 
of hard fighting the last gun was silenced, 
and flags of Europe, the United States, and 
Japan, waved over the forts. Long weeks 
afterward it was found that the attack had 
been made not an hour too soon. The deed 
had been done before the letter of June 19th 
was sent to the foreign ambassadors, and 
thence to the Methodist compound. Chinese 
government officials thought best to keep the 
real truth to themselves, as well as the fact 
that Captain McCalla 's army had been met 
by Chinese troops and repulsed. The assault 



146 Under Marching Orders 

upon the forts had something the same effect 
upon the Chinese people as the firing upon 
Fort Sumter had upon the Northerners at 
the outbreak of the Civil War. At any rate 
it gave that wily empress dowager a chance 
to throw off her mask, and enter freely upon 
her desperate attempt to drive all foreigners 
out of China. 

The next morning after the order to leave 
the city had been received in the Methodist 
mission, the women gathered about their 
open trunks in the church. Instructions had 
come from the legations that all within the 
compound should be ready to leave at a 
moment's notice, and that they could take 
with them only what could be borne in their 
hands. Mrs. Gamewell, tired almost beyond 
the power of thought, questioned with the 
others: "What shall I take, and what shall 
I leave? Which of these our possessions is 
more essential than the others?" "Things" 
were of small account on that weary, care- 
laden day. 

The real concern was for the Chinese 
Christians, all of whom must be left behind. 
The treachery of the Chinese government had 
already been proved, and there was little or 



Boxers and Barricades 147 

no hope that the foreigners would escape with 
their lives. In all likelihood they were being 
beguiled into a trap of death somewhere be- 
yond the walls of Peking. Safety for the 
Chinese Christians meant that they must be 
separated at once from the missionaries. 

In the Girls' High School the pupils came 
together at the call of their teachers. They 
were told that each one would be given money 
sufficient to support her for two or three 
months, and that they must go forth in search 
of shelter in some friendly Chinese home. 
With set, white faces girls and teachers knelt 
and prayed. "If life be given, then it shall 
be a life of service; if death, then God's will 
be done." This was the prayer with which 
each life was consecrated to God. Then they 
stood and sang those words of soldierly 
obedience: "Where he leads me I will fol- 
low. ' ' Again, in anguish of heart the teacher 
prayed, and even as she prayed the answer 
came. "Before they call I will answer, and 
while they are yet speaking I will hear." 
Some one lightly touched the kneeling figure, 
but so absorbed was she that the summons 
was thrice repeated before she gave heed. 
Then it was that swift joy took the place of 



148 Under Marching Orders 

sorrow. There was to be no separation of 
pupils and teachers, for all within the mis- 
sion were to take what belongings they could 
carry, and hasten to the legations about a 
mile away where all foreigners were to be as- 
sembled. 

Out in the streets of China's capital, Baron 
von Ketteler, the German ambassador, had 
been killed by an officer of the Chinese im- 
perial army. The first shot had been fired 
upon the foreigner, and China stood in battle 
array against the nations of the world. The 
German ambassador had actually given his 
life in sacrifice for the entire foreign settle- 
ment, for it was his death which revealed be- 
yond a doubt China's dastardly intention. 
The foreigners were to have been lured out of 
Peking only to be massacred by Boxers before 
they reached Tientsin. Minister Conger sent 
his last letter to the Methodist compound: 
"Come at once within the legation lines and 
bring your Chinese with you." Dr. Mor- 
rison, the correspondent of the London 
Times, a true man and valorous, had stood 
up in the midst of the legation council and 
boldly declared: "I should be ashamed to 
call myself a white man if I could not make 




149 



150 Under Marching Orders 

a place of refuge for these Chinese Chris* 
tians." 

At eleven o'clock in the forenoon, the long 
procession passed through the mission gate 
into Filial Piety Lane, thence across the great 
thoroughfare which led southward to the 
Hata gate, and turned westward into Lega- 
tion Street. First in the ranks marched the 
twenty marines, led by Captain Hall, and 
followed by the missionary women and chil- 
dren. Behind them a detachment of German 
soldiers bore upon a stretcher the wounded 
man who had been the interpreter for Baron 
von Ketteler, and who had almost miracu- 
lously escaped death in his flight to the Meth- 
odist compound. Then came the one hundred 
and twenty-six school girls marching in 
simple, quiet dignity as if they were on their 
way to a religious service or a school exercise. 
Hundreds of Chinese women and little chil- 
dren, followed by a large company of men 
and boys, were next in order. The handful 
of missionary men, armed with rifles or 
revolvers, closed the line of march. 

It was a brave, sad caravan proceeding on 
its way from danger into danger, and the 
longest, hardest test of endurance was yet to 



BESIEGED BY FRENZIED CHINESE 



153 



BESIEGED BY FRENZIED CHINESE 

"One equal temper of heroic hearts 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." 

■'. i •.-. 

Of all the great cities of the world, Peking 
in the old days was the most inaccessible both 
;by land and water. Other cities renowned in 
history — Carthage, Eome, Athens, Bombay — 
:have owed their prestige largely to their easy 
approach from the sea. It was character- 
istic, however, of the exclusive Chinese to 
locate their capital away from the coast and 
the rivers, and to surround it, as well as a 
portion of the empire itself, with a great wall. 
Within these city walls the foreigners were 
caught, as in a trap, in the month of June, 
1900. Release must come by means of the 
men on the war vessels at Taku, who would 
have to pass blockaded Tientsin and march 
the eighty miles to Peking. The railroad was 
destroyed: Boxers and imperial troops in 
combined strength would oppose their ad- 
vance. All means of communication, postal, 

155 



156 Under Marching Orders 

telephone, and telegraph, were cut off, and 
where was the daring messenger who would 
run the gauntlet of Boxer fury and carry 
news of the foreigners' plight to the armies! 
Such was the forlorn situation that glaring 
noonday when the homeless folk from the 
Methodist compound were received within 
the legation lines of defense. Human help 
was remote and unlikely; destruction by the 
Boxers near and threatening. God alone was 
the real bulwark of protection from the first 
to the last day of the long strife. 

East of the British Legation, separated by 
a street and a moat, was the palace of a 
Chinese nobleman, named Prince Su. His 
stately residence was known as the Su Wang 
Fu, briefly called the Fu. Persuaded by the 
tact of Dr. Morrison and Prof. James, Prince 
Su had granted permission for the Chinese 
Christians to be sheltered within his courts. 
Two thousand Catholic Chinese had already 
been housed there, and now several hundred 
Protestants were waiting for a place of 
refuge. Later in the day the prince fled into 
the Imperial City, thus making room in his 
empty house for this new multitude of de- 
pendent Chinese. Fires were still burning in 



iirimSs \ YA "° *?*i I doctors «2>i ft A students hqusI 



tcazhchs noose 

iuBtes^ 

Of MtNlSTtR 

m 




British Legation, Peking 




Gate to British Legation, Showing Fortification and 
Dry Canal 



Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 157 

the ranges within the buildings. Stores of 
coal and grain, and deep wells, were prom- 
ises of future provision. It seemed as if God 
himself had prepared this fold for his 
Chinese flock. 

Meanwhile the American missionaries 
halted within the shade of the United States 
Legation, where Mrs. Squires, wife of the 
First Secretary, served an informal luncheon 
for the entire company. After two hours' 
parley, it was decided that the American 
Legation was too close to the wall to be a 
safe place for women and children, and that 
the British Legation was the least exposed 
area. Consequently the weary wanderers 
filed into the courts already crowded with a 
motley throng of people and their belongings. 
There were Jesuit priests, French Catholic 
sisters, Legation students, merchants, tour- 
ists, and missionaries — as diverse a gather- 
ing as ever before in history inhabited six 
acres of earth. Boxes, bundles, trunks, baby 
carriages, and mattresses had been dropped 
anywhere and everywhere. Carts and coolies 
deposited odds and ends of furniture, and 
raced back for another load while yet there 
was time. Through all this chaos the mis- 



158 Under Marching Orders 

sionaries pressed their way to the Legation 
Chapel which was reserved for their use. On 
the seats and in the corners bundles of all 
shapes and sizes were hastily thrown, while 
aisles and vestibule became literally choked 
with mattresses and bedding. 

Within the legation quadrangle there were 
now assembled nearly four thousand people, 
representing seventeen different nations. 
Nearly one thousand were foreigners, four 
hundred and fifty of whom were the soldiers 
who constituted the entire military guard. 
All but one of the eleven legations were to be 
garrisoned and held until their resources 
failed, when a last united stand was to be 
made at the British Legation. Each national 
detachment of soldiers guarded its own lega- 
tion, except the Japanese and Italians. The 
legation of the latter was destroyed early in 
the siege, and that of the former was wholly 
within the firing lines, and needed no further 
protection. Therefore these two bands of 
soldiers were stationed in the park which sur- 
rounded the Su Wang Fu to shield the 
Chinese Christians from attack. All other 
foreigners were harbored within the British 
Legation, although the ministers of the dif- 



Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 159 

ferent countries abode with the soldiers at 
their respective headquarters. 

While the women missionaries tried to 
bring order out of chaos in the British 
Chapel, a number of the men, accompanied 
by a squad of Chinese, went back to the Meth- 
odist compound to rescue some of the provi- 
sions stored in Asbury Church. It was a sad 
experience, this return to the deserted com- 
pound. The homes, the schools, and the 
church were still standing, but at any moment 
they might be reduced to a heap of broken 
bricks. A foreboding told the missionaries 
that they were looking for the last time upon 
these buildings which their toil had made 
possible, and which they loved as a sculptor 
loves the figure he carves out of the rough 
marble. But upon these thoughts there was 
no time to brood, for their work must be done 
with utmost speed, if they would return 
before the attack began. Food supplies in 
large quantities were gathered into sheets and 
quilts, and borne by the Chinese to the church 
within the legation lines. A few carts were 
found which transported bedding, clothing, 
and other property. Yet when all was done, 
possessions worth thousands of dollars had 



160 Under Marching Orders 

to be left behind for the ruthless hands of the 
looters, who were even then at work. 

Precisely at four o'clock in the afternoon, 
twenty-four hours after the command to leave 
Peking had been received, Chinese imperial 
troops opened fire upon the legations. Mr. 
Gamewell with Mrs. Jewell, one of the 
teachers, started forth from the Fu just as 
the first bullets whizzed through the street. 
Voices from across the way cried, "Go 
back! Go back!" After waiting a few min- 
utes, they crouched low and ran across the 
perilous street to be received within the lega- 
tion gate. Thereafter all women were for- 
bidden to cross this dangerous thoroughfare 
which lay between them and their Chinese 
Christians in Prince Su's palace. 

While rifle shots were hissing through the 
air, the evening meal was being served in 
Legation Chapel. Men, women, and children 
sat on benches and bundles, on the altar 
steps, and on the floor, while odd bits of food 
were distributed to them. Porcelain-lined 
plates had been secured that afternoon from 
the stores on Legation Street, and stood the 
test of constant use through the many days to 
come. After the meal was over, the dishes 



Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 161 

were handed through a window to Chinese 
servants outside, who washed and returned 
them, after which they were stacked on the 
altar close by the tall candlesticks, and in 
front of a beautiful painting. The pulpit, 
too, soon became a cupboard for cups and 
saucers, knives and forks and spoons. 

The darkness of the first night settled 
gradually upon the tired camp, and strange 
preparations for sleeping were everywhere 
in order. Mattresses were laid on the chapel 
floor, and families and other groups of people 
divided the floor space into as small fractions 
as possible. Others utilized the church 
benches, placing them face to face, and 
spreading thereon such fragments of bedding 
as they chanced to possess. Many of the 
people had no pillows, sheets, mattresses, or 
blankets, but in siege days he who has two 
of anything, promptly shares with him who 
has none. Dr. Arthur H. Smith, the historian 
of the siege, said that the sleeping arrange- 
ments in the chapel resembled the "ground 
plan of a box of sardines. ' ' Yet there was not 
room for all the seventy. Several of the men 
sought the uncertain shelter of pavilions, 
verandas, and benches under trees — any place 



162 Under Marching Orders 

where a faint measure of safety might be 
found. A message was brought to the chapel 
from Lady MacDonald, wife of the British 
ambassador, to the effect that four or five 
women could find refuge in a room in the stu- 
dents ' quarter. Mrs. Gamewell and others 
responded at once to this summons. Through 
a labyrinth of Peking carts and boxes, they 
found their way to the long, two-story build- 
ing which Mrs. Gamewell said seemed to be 
an "eruption of people and things." The 
first floor was solidly packed with people, 
but to their surprise they found unoccupied 
rooms on the floor above, in which they spread 
their bedding and lay down without removing 
their clothes. The veranda outside was 
congested with people who preferred the 
protection of the front wall to the room in- 
doors. At the rear of the building a volley 
of rifle-shot poured over the north wall of the 
legation. Mrs. Gamewell lay quietly on the 
floor of the unfamiliar room, conscious of 
the wakefulness of the people all about her, 
her mind asking questions to which the dark- 
ness gave no answer. "What would the night 
bring forth ? Was death really near ? Would 
the relief column come with the morning? If 



Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 163 

not, how near and what the end?" Even yet 
the thoughts of the people turned wistfully 
to Captain McCalla and his troops, not know- 
ing, as did the Chinese, that they had been 
defeated and driven back to Tientsin. 

As the night deepened, the rifle-fire intensi- 
fied. A fierce attack was in progress at the 
north, and the Chinese soldiers had the range 
of the rear windows of the building. Mrs. 
Gamewell and her companions were almost 
on the firing line of battle. By and by she 
heard the guard come in, and realized that 
Mr. Gamewell had been stationed at a window 
at the end of the hall. Presently there was a 
hurrying to and fro. Armed men hastened 
through the room, stepping over the women 
as they lay on the floor on the direct route of 
the soldiers from post to post. 

Finally, out of the horror of the night 
another day dawned, bringing its blasting 
heat and its pressing work. In the morning 
an invitation came to the little group of 
women to spend the next night in Lady Mac- 
Donald 's ballroom. Other women had al- 
ready gathered there, but on its broad floor 
there was sleeping space for all. There Mrs. 
Gamewell spent the remaining nights of the 



164 Under Marching Orders 

siege. Some one gave her a piece of a mat- 
tress, while a laundry bag, enclosing shoes 
and sundry personal possessions, served as 
a pillow. 

It was on the second day of the siege that 
Sir Claude MacDonald rallied about him the 
missionaries who had already proved their 
ingenuity and perseverance in the work ac- 
complished in the Methodist compound. Mr. 
Gamewell was immediately appointed Chief 
of the Fortification Staff, and was given 
entire charge of the work of fortifying the 
British Legation. It was a delicate matter 
for a civilian to have authority beyond the 
military officers, but later events showed that 
in nothing did Sir Claude MacDonald mani- 
fest his wisdom so clearly as in giving Mr. 
Gamewell full liberty to build the fortifica- 
tions according to his own ideas and his 
alone. Other committees were created at the 
same time. There was a General Committee, 
of Public Comfort; a committee on San- 
itation, made up of missionary physicians 
and others; a Food Supply committee; a 
committee to enlist the labor of the Chinese, 
as well as committees to watch against fires, 
and to provide fuel for fires of another sort. 



Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 165 

Promptly after its appointment, the Food 
Supply Committee started on a foraging tour 
in Legation Street. In this street were lo- 
cated a number of native and foreign stores, 
whose proprietors had either fled outside the 
area occupied by the foreigners, or had 
sought the protection of the British Legation. 
An incredible amount of foodstuffs had been 
left in these shops. If the provisions were 
not given voluntarily by the owners, a care- 
ful record was kept by the committee of all 
goods appropriated, in order that future pay- 
ment might be made. In one store several 
tons of rice were discovered, most of it being 
the musty, yellow variety which is hard eat- 
ing for the foreigner. A native shop close 
by the canal was stacked high with cylindrical 
baskets containing fresh, new wheat just 
brought in from Hu-nan. There were found 
to be at least eight thousand bushels of this 
wheat. Eleven stone mills were a part of the 
outfit of the grain-shop. In the days to come, 
early and late, in sunshine and rain, and 
under the incessant fire of rifles, these mills 
were made to grind meal and flour for for- 
eigners and Chinese. In other shops was an 
abundance of white and yellow Indian corn 



166 Under Marching Orders 

and pulse, as well as bags of coffee, sugar, 
beans, and an assortment of canned goods. 
There were many horses and mules in and 
about the legations, and the time came when 
they also were a welcome addition to the 
daily diet. Within the British compound 
were eight wells, which furnished an inex- 
haustible supply of clear, cold water. A 
wonderful blessing in the city of Peking. 

When more than three thousand people 
gathered at noon on the 20th of June, within 
the legation lines, there was not food enough 
at hand for one meal. Within a day, sufficient 
provision had been found to sustain life for 
two months. To some, it seemed a miracle as 
great as any recorded in the Book itself. 
This indication of God's loving care gave 
heart to the hard-pressed people during 
every day of the long struggle. 

From the moment when Mr. Gamewell was 
given charge of the fortifications until the end 
of the siege, he worked day and night to 
make the British Legation as nearly like an 
impregnable fortress as was possible under 
the conditions. Often four hours out of the 
twenty-four were his allowance for sleep. 
By means of a much-used bicycle he seemed 



Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 167 

to be everywhere at once, superintending the 
building of barricades, seeking reinforce- 
ments of Chinese laborers, and always watch- 
ing for weak points in the defenses which 
were immediately to be strengthened. One 
day when Mrs. Gamewell was inquiring for 
her husband, some one replied : "If you stand 
right where you are for five minutes, he will 
be likely to go past." And the prediction 
proved true. Often after the furious attacks 
which came in the midnight hours, he would 
go to the threshold of the ballroom where the 
group of women were trying in vain to sleep, 
and would give them an account of what had 
happened, telling them that it was never as 
bad as it had seemed to be from the sounds. 
His reassuring words comforted them so that 
they could relax for a few hours ' sleep before 
the morning sun summoned to the tasks of a 
new day. 

"When the refugees entered the legations, 
there were no fortifications except a barri- 
cade at each end of Legation Street, and the 
natural protection afforded by the walls. 
One of Mr. Gamewell's first moves was to 
fortify the great gate. The stable gate was 
also most important. A wall eight feet thick 



168 Under Marching Orders 

was built inside this heavy, double gate. The 
enemy set fire to the posts of the gate, and 
posts and gate were totally consumed. If 
this gate had not been strengthened Chinese 
rifles would have had clean sweep of the 
legation court, and Chinese troops could have 
rushed inside the lines. 

In the region of the Mongol Market, in the 
southwestern corner of the legation, solid 
barricades five feet in thickness were con- 
structed. In exactly five hours after these 
defenses were finished, the Chinese had loop- 
holed every house opposite, thus showing how 
necessary it was to have this remote corner 
protected. 

The director of the fortifications gave end- 
less time and thought to the eastern side of 
the compound, which was the strategic sec- 
tion. The Su Wang Fu was separated only 
by the narrow canal road. If the Fu should 
have to be abandoned, as had already seemed 
likely, the enemy could mount their guns on 
the mounds of the flower garden, only fifty 
yards away from the residence of Sir Claude 
MacDonald. To prepare for such an emer- 
gency, thick, high walls were built of earth 
and braced by heavy timbers. Countermines 




Dr. Gamewell and Fortification Staff 




Sand-bag Fortification 



Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 169 

were dug in order to stop mines projected 
by the enemy. This elaborate barricading 
was a herculean task, and literally could not 
have been accomplished without the patient, 
uncomplaining labor of the Chinese Chris- 
tians, whose presence was at first deemed by 
some to be a menace and a nuisance. 

As soon as Mr. Gamewell began to plan the 
fortifications, he foresaw the need of sand- 
bags, an endless succession of them, to repair 
breaches, to surround the sentinel at his post 
on the outer wall, to barricade the hospital 
and other buildings, and to shield the men as 
they worked on the defenses. The chapel 
became the headquarters of the bag-making 
industry and the women the incessant labor- 
ers. There was never a day when some one 
was not making bags. A number of sewing- 
machines appeared as suddenly as if a magic 
wand had called them into being, and spools 
of thread multiplied in the same enchanted 
fashion. Deserted shops and Chinese houses 
were ransacked, revealing untold lengths of 
Bilks, satins, and brocades, priceless stuffs, 
which were speedily turned into bags. Lady 
MacDonald sent exquisite portieres, while 
soldiers contributed their army blankets. 



170 Under Marching Orders 

Fabrics worth tens of thousands of dollars 
were cut and stitched into shape, to be packed 
with earth taken from holes dug in the yard. 

In the chapel, the whirr of sewing-machines 
added to the general confusion. In this one 
room, forty-three feet long by twenty-five 
feet wide, nine meals were served daily, 
breakfast, dinner, and supper being provided 
in relays. Flies, in sticky, black swarms cov- 
ered ceiling, walls, people, and food. In this 
room babies and children slept and played. 
Here it was that the choking heat was in- 
creased by piles of sand-bags on the window- 
ledges, which kept out light and air as well as 
shot and shell. In this little English chapel, 
men and women, with worn, haggard faces 
sang and prayed together each day. And 
here the women, Mrs. Gamewell in the midst, 
worked every minute of the daylight. The 
food must be cooked and served, the chapel 
floor must be mopped, bedding for the hos- 
pital must be supplied, and always and ever 
there was a cry for "bags, bags, bags!" 

So expert did the bag-makers become, that 
they could produce an average of one bag in 
four minutes, several hundred in two hours, 
and two thousand in a day. Between forty 



Besieged by Frenzied Chinese 171 

and fifty thousand were made in all. If the 
demand for bags was urgent, the women 
would leave their sewing and resort to the 
ditches where they held the bags and men 
shoveled in earth. One day Mrs. Conger was 
seen standing in a deep, dusty hole, holding 
bags open while a long-robed priest of the 
Greek Church filled them; a little Chinese 
boy tied the strings, and the English chaplain 
bore away the finished products. Some- 
times Chinese and foreign children trotted 
jinrikishas full of bags to the gate or wall 
where eager men received them. A large 
part of the history of the siege is the story 
of these bags of many colors, made and filled 
by many hands, and saving from cannon- 
shot and bullets, many hundreds of people. 

In the stifling chapel, through the courts 
where bullets dropped unceasingly, in the 
ballroom during nights of terror, Mrs. 
Gamewell lived her cheery, buoyant life as of 
old. Her ready smile and quick appreciation 
gave courage to the dispirited soldiers. The 
unfailing twinkle shone in her eyes when the 
funny things happened, and funny things 
there were in the very heart of the sad. And 
the look of triumphant vision crowned it all 



172 Under Marching Orders 

as if she "endured as seeing him who is in- 
visible. ' ' For all this fiery trial she had been 
preparing in the old war days in Davenport, 
m the pioneer years in the Peking compound, 
in the disturbed months at Chung-ch'ing, and 
throughout her varied, eventful life. In it 
all she had been tried and had not been found 
wanting. But the great struggle was telling 
with fatal certainty upon mind and body. 
That glad energy which had always been 
given without stint to those who had need was 
spending itself to the utmost, those summer 
days in the siege of Peking. 



THE COMING OF THE ALLIES 



173 



XI 

THE COMING OF THE ALLIES 

"Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope." 

From the palace courts within the Forbid- 
den City, tall rockets sent lines of fire into 
the air and dropped in tiny balls of brightly 
colored flame. The empress dowager was 
flinging aloft her daily signal to imperial 
troops and " loyal Boxers" for a fresh, 
furious attack upon the foreigners. A deluge 
of shot and shell regularly obeyed the royal 
command. By fire, shot, explosion, or star- 
vation she would annihilate the official repre- 
sentatives of the great nations of the world 
and their people who had rallied around them 
for defense. What consternation would 
ensue if the President of the United States 
should order the national army to shoot 
bullets and cannon-balls into the legations 
where the foreign ambassadors live in Wash- 
ington! Yet this was exactly the treatment 
Americans, Europeans, and Japanese were 
receiving in China at the hands of the gov- 
ernment pledged by treaty to protect them. 

175 



176 Under Marching Orders 

For national treachery, the act was beyond 
parallel. 

On the second and third days of the siege, 
Chinese troops made the most fiendish at- 
tempts to destroy the British Legation by 
fire. They ponred kerosene upon their own 
buildings which were close to the legation 
walls, and burned them in the mad hope that 
the quick, fierce flames would consume the 
foreigners. At the same time they kept up 
a perpetual fusillade of rifle-shots, thinking 
thus to damage the defenses. 

Eeckless beyond belief, they set fire to the 
Hanlin Yuan, their library of rare old books 
and ancient records. So sacred had this na- 
tional museum been considered that none but 
Chinese had ever passed beyond its doors. 
But now, in the frantic desire to expel the 
foreigner, they would willingly sacrifice the 
empire's treasures. The library was located 
at the north of the British Legation, not far 
from the dwelling of Sir Claude MacDonald. 
A gale of wind was blowing from the north 
and would vastly aid their efforts to bear the 
flames to the ambassador's house. Over in the 
legation courts, men of all ages and races 
carried water-buckets, manipulated the small 




Ruins of the Hanlix Library 




Chinese Watching a Fire in the British Legation 



The Coming of the Allies 177 

fire-engines, and cut down trees to prevent 
their dry branches from spreading the fire. 
It was a tragic scene ; men fighting for their 
lives and for the lives of women and children 
against fire and wind and hosts of frenzied 
Chinese. No power on earth could possibly 
save them, and it was no human power which 
made the wind suddenly shift to the north- 
west and quickly die away just when the 
danger was keenest, carrying smoke and flame 
away from the imperiled legation. For the 
remainder of the day and throughout the 
night, soldiers and civilians worked inces- 
santly, checking every vestige of fire, and re- 
moving all inflammable material. In the 
early morning they came in, spent, dirty, 
hungry, but triumphant. 

A week or more after these first savage 
onslaughts of the Chinese, a handful of Amer- 
ican soldiers made the most remarkable 
charge of the whole siege, which for sheer 
daring was almost unparalleled in military 
history. The United States Legation lay in 
the shadow of the city wall which separated 
the Tartar and Chinese cities. From the 
Ch'ien gate Chinese soldiers crept warily 
along the top of the wall and sent an ava- 



178 Under Marching Orders 

lanche of shot into the legation below. It was 
evident that the wall must be captured and 
held, else Chinese sharpshooters would soon 
have the range of the entire legation area. 
The next day, under constant fire from the 
enemy, Captain Myers led his band of hardy 
American soldiers up the ramp (inclined 
ascent) to the summit of the wall, where by 
painful degrees they built two barricades 
somewhat resembling a rough fort. Day by 
day these marines guarded their post. Some 
of them had already learned the meaning of 
war in Cuba and the Philippines. There, 
after the battle was over they could return to 
camp for a snatch of rest, but on the Peking 
wall was no respite in sun or rain, darkness 
or light. Captain Myers stayed on the wall 
seven days in continuous succession. 

In the hours of the night the Chinese sol- 
diers wrought a twisting line of barricade 
from the gate toward the American position, 
ending with a tower only a few feet distant, 
from which they threw bricks and stones at 
Captain Myers and the marines. A return 
charge must be made at once if the wall 
would be held, and the Chinese repulsed. 
Captain Myers rallied his men with a few 



The Coming of the Allies 179 

direct words of challenge, telling them that 
the obstacles were great but that the lives 
of women and children depended upon their 
valor. He then leaped boldly over the bar- 
ricades followed by the Americans aided by 
a group of British and Eussians. In the 
dark, desperate struggle about seventy-five 
foreign soldiers fought unknown thousands 
of Chinese and drove them back in confusion. 
Their barricades were captured, and were 
held for seven heroic weeks, although Captain 
Myers was so seriously wounded in that 
night's sortie that he could not resume his 
post on the wall throughout the siege. He 
and his dauntless marines were likened to the 
band of three hundred Spartans who fought 
against the entire Persian host at Thermo- 
pylae more than two thousand years before. 

Not only in the hearts of American marines 
must bravery dominate, but all alike must 
learn a new code of courage for these days 
of sharp peril. In the legation courts rifle- 
shots fell like hail upon the trees, severing 
leaves and branches and scattering them upon 
the ground as if a hurricane had passed that 
way. Children filled hats with bullets which 
they picked up under the trees. Forty can- 



180 Under Marching Orders 

non-balls of different size were stacked in 
front of Sir Claude MacDonald's dwelling. 
The firing of hundreds of shells and rifle- 
shots at the rate of one hundred and twenty 
a minute proved that the Chinese possessed 
modern equipment and plenty of it. Minister 
Conger said that nothing in the Civil War 
could compare with the fury of these onsets. 
Chinese sharpshooters hid like birds in the 
branches of trees outside the legation walls, 
and chose their deadly aim, their smokeless 
rifles giving little clue to their whereabouts. 
One day Mrs. Gamewell was hastening across 
the court, when a bullet whizzed so close that 
she thought it must have passed through her 
dress. She turned and saw a soldier fall. 
He had received the shot which she had es- 
caped only by a fraction of a second. One 
hot evening she was going with another 
woman to the well, and as they stepped into 
a patch of light cast by a lantern, a bullet 
bored into the ground at their heels. Every 
day told its tale of startling, hairbreadth 
escapes. Bullets passed through the open 
fingers of a hand, through a fan held in the 
hand, through the hair of a man who leaned 
incautiously out of a window, through the 




House in British Legation, Peking, Showing Bombardment 

by Chinese 




International Gun, "Betsey" 



The Coming of the Allies 181 

cuff of a sleeve, and one smashed a bottle 
which Dr. Ament carried, leaving him un- 
scathed. 

To return what Dr. Smith called these "in- 
cessant attentions," large guns were sorely 
needed. There was only one cannon within 
the legation lines, an Italian one-pounder, 
which was frequently moved from one post 
to another, to give the impression of five or 
six guns. It was at this juncture that a 
Chinese carpenter, foraging for tools in a 
blacksmith shop, unearthed a battered 
Chinese cannon, which was borne in triumph 
to the British Legation. The Italians hunted 
up an old gun-carriage, the Russians con- 
tributed the shells, which belonged to their 
machine gun left at Tientsin, and Mitchell, 
the fearless American gunner, applied a 
Japanese fuse to Chinese powder, and the 
first shot was fired ! No wonder the gun was 
christened the "International," though the 
soldiers found this name too bulky for prac- 
tical use, and called it "Betsey." It did val- 
iant work for such a rusty, ancient weapon, 
on one occasion sending a shell through three 
walls into the Imperial City. 

Hardest of all the trials of these desolating 



182 Under Marching Orders 

days, was the sight of wounded soldiers as 
they were borne from the outer barricades to 
the hospital. Within three weeks, fifty of the 
four hundred and fifty marines had been 
killed, and sixty injured; the gritty little 
Japanese having lost the largest number of 
men, as well as having won the most con- 
stant praise. With the diminishing garrison, 
the murderous efforts of untold thousands of 
Chinese, the total silence of the outside world, 
there was large need of faith in God. Each 
morning in the Legation Chapel men and 
women prayed together for strength to out- 
last the day. There were countless distrac- 
tions, children crying, sewing-machines buzz- 
ing, people coming and going incessantly, 
and yet withal a reverent worship which was 
a comfort and support. Bibles opened almost 
of their own accord to the Psalms which 
seemed exactly to describe the daily distress 
and peril, and the utter dependence upon 
God for deliverance. "If it had not been 
Jehovah who was on our side, when men rose 
up against us; then they had swallowed us 
up alive, when their wrath was kindled 
against us." "The angel of Jehovah en- 
campeth round about them that fear him, 



The Coming of the Allies 183 

and delivereth them." The two hymns most 
frequently sung at these morning services 
were, "The Son of God goes forth to war," 
and "Peace, perfect peace." 

Late in the afternoon of July 17 Minister 
Conger came to the door of the chapel, hold- 
ing in his hand a slip of paper. Intense in- 
terest answered his appearance. Could it be 
that a message from the relief column had 
been received at last? Eager people rallied 
about him to hear the coveted news. It was 
a cablegram from the Chinese minister at 
Washington and read thus: "Conger, send 
tidings bearer." Hardly did it seem possible 
that the communication could be genuine, so 
mysterious had been its coming. Major 
Conger wrote the following reply in cypher, 
to be forwarded to the government in Wash- 
ington: "Surrounded and fired upon by 
Chinese troops for a month. If not relieved 
soon, massacre will follow." Thus it was 
that the first word from the besieged people 
in Peking reached the waiting world and was 
scarcely credited, so bewildering was its 
meaning. The Chinese ambassador in Wash- 
ington had steadily declared that Boxers 
alone were responsible for the excitement. 



184 Under Marching Orders 

and that the legations were safe. The State 
Department of the government demanded 
proof of his statement, and the cablegrams 
received and sent by Minister Conger were 
the result. The dispatch which said Chinese 
troops were attacking the legations was a 
puzzle they could not solve. 

On the next day, a Chinese Christian who 
had been sent by the Japanese from Peking 
to Tientsin, June 30, stumbled into the lega- 
tion lines, worn from hardship and danger, 
but triumphantly bearing a letter from the 
Japanese consul at Tientsin to the Japanese 
minister in Peking. Excitement ran high as 
the people gathered about the bulletin-board 
in the pavilion of the bell-tower, and read this 
thrilling message from those who were plan- 
ning their relief: "A mixed division consist- 
ing of 2,400 Japanese, 4,000 Eussians, 1,200 
British, 1,500 Americans, 1,500 French, and 
300 Germans leaves Tientsin on or about the 
20th of July, for the relief of Peking." No- 
body knew how many days would yet have to 
be lived through before the troops could 
fight their way to Peking, but they were com- 
ing, coming, and that assurance was enough 
to give new zest to life. 



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Last Message from Dr. Gamewell before the Siege 



Trans-Atlantiq^S 



Cablegram. 



European offices: 

i.ii*6.N VrUt-ly.i'OOWl. ES Kor.1 t.-xtkuce. 



,, c«rlta»«t, »»M 



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>" V > Xft v r\# ;fe?>!!£ NNt 2^**'^ *A4, POSTAL TU.M.HAPH GFFHfcV 

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TiaiAtt Words, ;.,-, ^i A» , -**—i- — 

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MISSIOIS Hf« 
PEjCnTG RELIEVED ALL MEMBERS MISSION SA?E WELL DAVtS OAUSYEU. 

First News of the Relief 



The Coming of the Allies 185 

It was more than a week before a second 
communication from Tientsin was posted on 
the bulletin. On the 4th of July a Chinese 
boy, disguised as a beggar, and carrying a 
bowl of porridge in which was hidden a letter 
wrapped in oil paper, had slipped stealthily 
through the Boxer lines and started forth on 
his hazardous journey to Tientsin. He had 
now returned, bringing a letter from the 
British consul at Tientsin to Sir Claude Mac- 
Donald. < < Tientsin, July 22 : There are 24,000 
troops landed, and 19,000 here. There are 
plenty of troops on the way if you can keep 
yourself in food." The vagueness of this 
message was disheartening to those who had 
longed so desperately for definite tidings, but 
at last there was proof that the outside world 
had not totally forgotten, and that the armies 
of the nations were sometime coming to their 
relief. This very contact with the " great, 
living, throbbing world was felt by the be- 
leaguered garrison, and it braced itself for 
the days of holding on that must elapse before 
the allies should arrive at the gates of 
Peking. ' ' 

As the sun went down, and the work of the 
day slackened, a group of people gathered 



186 Under Marching Orders 

about the bell-tower, and almost unconscious- 
ly broke forth into singing. Mrs. Gamewell 
drew near, her thoughts traveling far beyond 
the walls of Peking to the country across the 
sea. "As the strains of America floated out 
upon the night air, in what solemn radiance 
dawned visions of the homeland! Facing 
death every moment of the day, the heart had 
so certainly turned to the home beyond, that 
the home of this life had faded, until it was 
as unreal as the future life usually is. Now, 
with a bound the sweet possibilities of home 
and friends were brought near." Her rich 
voice sang with them the "Star Spangled 
Banner," "The Battle Hymn of the Re- 
public," "Marching through Georgia," and 
? ■ Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are march- 
ing," — those vibrant old war-songs which she 
had sung in the gray house in Davenport. 
The singers then tried "The Marseillaise," 
and the French from their pavilion across 
the way applauded gratefully. With the 
British soldiers they sang "God Save the 
Queen," with the Germans, "Die Wacht am 
Rhein," and finally the Russians sang their 
sadly beautiful national hymn. The music of 
that night would long haunt the memory of 



The Coming of the Allies 187 

those who realized that a common danger 
united all hearts, erasing the national enmi- 
ties of the past. 

A new song of hope gladdened each man 
and woman in the besieged legation. Every 
morning brought expectancy, and every night 
the disappointment of the day was lost in 
the thought that even while they slept, the 
troops might be drawing near the city walls. 
Ears were strained to catch the first boom of 
guns which might herald their approach. 
1 ' Will they come to-day ? Under cover of this 
night's darkness will they enter the city?" 

Knowing too well that foreign armies 
were on the march, Chinese soldiers made the 
most of these last days of opportunity. At- 
tacks were made with a sharpness and persist- 
ency such as belong to the final extremity of 
warfare. New Mannlicher bullets, shot with 
a low aim, cut through the air in hot succes- 
sion, and because of their penetrating quality 
riddled barricades as never before in the 
siege. Mr. Gamewell was kept on the alert 
every instant, repairing breaches in the de- 
fenses, digging countermine ditches, and 
everywhere inspecting and strengthening the 
fortifications. In the chapel, the daily labor 



188 Under Marching Orders 

of preparing food, making hospital supplies, 
and stitching bags innumerable, continued 
without respite. 

On one never-to-be-forgotten night, Au- 
gust 13, excitement ran riot. Sleep was far 
removed from the people, and there were 
many who did not even seek their beds 
throughout the night. Shells crashed through 
walls with a resounding explosion. Bullets 
dislodged bricks and tiles from roofs, send- 
ing them with a deadly thud into the courts 
below. But hearken ! What is that strange, 
new sound away in the distance ? The ' ' rat- 
tat-tat " of a machine-gun somewhere beyond 
the east wall of Peking ! The foreign troops ! 
Must it not be true, or have the Chinese ar- 
mies added this modern gun to their equip- 
ment f The courts were thronged with people, 
listening and questioning. At three o 'clock in 
the morning, Mr. Gamewell went to the ball- 
room door to tell his wife and her companions 
the news which hardly seemed real, so long 
had the waiting been. The troops were surely 
coming! Immediately Mrs. Gamewell arose 
and went outside to join the rejoicing people. 

As daylight broke over Peking, the boom 
of cannon was heard to the east. Nearer and 




Joy at the Coming of the Allies 



The Coming of the Allies 189 

nearer sounded the roar of heavy guns. 
Soon after two o'clock in the afternoon, an 
American marine on the wall sighted the ap- 
proaching troops, and word was swiftly borne 
to Sir Claude MacDonald. With a little 
group of Europeans, he went in haste to the 
bank of the canal, where already a throng of 
Chinese Christians had gathered to greet the 
foreign armies. There they come, British 
troops, almost running in their eagerness! 
Through the Watergate which leads into the 
Tartar City under the American barricade 
on the wall, they press their way, until they 
are inside the legation walls. Sir Claude 
MacDonald and the handful of Europeans 
try their best to raise a cheer, but in vain. 
Their voices are not equal to the strain of 
such great joy. 

Under the British flag, Sikh soldiers from 
India, wearing their white turbans, led the 
glad march into the British Legation. Then 
came the British soldiers, with their helmets, 
and finally the American Fourteenth In- 
fantry, "our boys," Mrs. Gamewell called 
them, "with their slouch hats and pitifully 
haggard faces." There followed "such a 
riot of joy as is seldom seen in Asia, and such 



190 Under Marching Orders 

as was never seen in the capital of the Chinese 
empire.' * Mrs. Gamewell stood with the 
throng of rescued people, waving, cheer- 
ing, weeping, but there was ' l sl cold clutch on 
the thrilling gladness" when she was re- 
minded of those who were absent from this 
great rejoicing, but whose lives had been 
given in sacrifice to make it possible. 

The allied forces of seven of the great 
nations of the world marched into China's 
capital city, August 14, 1900, and the siege 
of Peking was ended. Never in history had 
there been a siege so unique! It was com- 
puted that nearly two million bullets, and 
2,900 shells and solid shot had been fired at 
the legations. Yet within the British Com- 
pound only one woman received injury, and 
that on the day of the relief. None of the 
children suffered harm, although they played 
freely about the grounds. Cases of measles, 
typhoid and scarlet fevers, and even small- 
pox developed here and there in the congested 
quarters, but there was never a suggestion 
of an epidemic. Often the temperature was 
100 degrees Fahrenheit, but none succumbed 
to the heat. The Chinese Christians, whose 
presence was not wholly welcome at first, 



The Coming of the Allies 191 

proved by their unremitting labor that with- 
out them the defenses could not have been 
built, and the legations held for seven long 
weeks. To Mr. Game well more than to any 
other man was due the preservation of the 
lives of the foreigners. This was the feeling 
expressed in a letter of appreciation sent him 
by Minister Conger. Some one inquired of 
General Gaselee, the commander of the allied 
troops, his opinion of the fortifications, and 
he replied that they were ' ' beyond praise ! ' ' 
But back of all the brave, unflinching work 
•done by men and women, foreign and Chinese, 
was the God who had responded to their trust, 
and had led them through tribulation to 
victory. 

August 22, a caravan of army wagons, each 
drawn by four army mules, stopped at the 
legation gate. Mr. and Mrs. Gamewell 
climbed into one of these wagons, sat upon 
their trunks, and proceeded thus into the 
streets of the devastated city, on through the 
Ch'ien gate, into the southern city, and thence 
through the east gate out into the great world 
beyond the walls of Peking. As Mrs. Game- 
well turned for a last look at the dusty old 
walled city, she thought with joy of the new 



192 Under Marching Orders 

days to come, for with her sure look ahead she 
knew that out of the darkness of these 
troubled nights, a daylight, white and glori- 
ous, would dawn for ancient China. That 
she had had the chance to help in hastening 
its coming would be cause for eternal grati- 
tude. At T'ung-chou the travelers went on 
board a rice-boat which made its slow way 
through the shallow water of the river to 
Tientsin. From Tientsin they went to Na- 
gasaki, Japan, and thence across the Pacific 
to the United States. Through the shining 
waters of the Golden Grate the great steamer 
brought to her native shores the woman who, 
twenty-nine years before, had sailed away 
into the new, untried life in China. Expe- 
riences so rich and varied had filled those 
years that she had almost lived two lives in 
one ; and, as she came again to her girlhood 
home, there was an undying song of joy in 
her heart, that to the bugle-call of duty she 
had risen up right early and obeyed. 



A NEW WORLD 



193 



XII 
A NEW WOKLD 

"The work of the world is done by few; 
God asks that a part be done by you." 

The church was brightly lighted and, ex- 
cept for a reserved section in the center, filled 
with people. A sense of expectancy was in 
the air and a thrill of enthusiasm touched 
every responsive person. Flags of different 
nations, with their varied colors and designs, 
suggested a patriotism of world-wide scope. 
Elaborately wrought Chinese banners gave 
richness and tone to the unusual decorations, 
and at the same time spoke of valued services 
rendered by Americans to that Far Eastern 
land. In the midst of flags and banners hung 
the pennant which had fluttered from the 
masthead of Admiral Dewey's flagship as it 
sailed into Manila Bay. The impulse of the 
place was outgoing, unselfish, broad as the 
bounds of the earth. In the audience were 
people who had come from all parts of the 
United States to counsel together concerning 
the great "unfinished task" of the Christian 

195 



196 Under Marching Orders 

Church. On the platform were assembled 
those men and women who had gone forth 
under marching orders to the utmost borders 
of the world. 

Gradually the organ music seemed to weave 
all these influences into one, and to express 
in sound the mighty motive of service. Sing- 
ing one of the martial hymns of the Church, 
a long procession of girls, dressed in white, 
marched down the aisle and filled the central 
seats. Then, as the audience settled itself, 
and through the opening hymns and prayers 
became a unit of attention, a woman, intense, 
alive in every inch of her being, came to the 
front of the platform and began to speak. 
Entering, as was her wont, into the spirit of 
the gathering, she said with girlish delight: 
1 ' I am having a good time here to-night, ' ' and 
then, with no thought of herself, swung into 
the story she had come to tell. It was the 
story of an old-world country in which dwell 
one fourth of all the peoples of the earth; a 
country torn between the customs of vast 
ages and the vision of the twentieth century ; 
but where, out of the fury of the conflict, an 
enlightenment, calm and sure, is rising into 
life; a country where the followers of the 



A New World 197 

great Christ met death by Boxer torture 
rather than betray their trust, and whose 
lives laid down have proved the most wonder- 
ful testimony to the power of their Leader. 

Step by step she led her hearers until they 
stood with her in the presence of that ' ' cloud 
of Chinese witnesses" and of the Lord they 
had died to honor. It was the glory of the 
work, the golden opportunity for usefulness 
among a people ready and waiting, which 
possessed this slender woman, and conveyed 
itself to her audience. Her voice carried to 
the farthest corner of the church, and her 
vivid words made distant places and people 
near and real. But beyond all was the im- 
pression of a life glowing like a white fire with 
the intense joy of self -forgetting service. 

Since her return to the United States, Mrs. 
Gamewell had traveled from one city to an- 
other addressing large assemblages of people. 
Often a series of gatherings was held at 
which she was the only woman speaker, tak- 
ing her place on the platform by the side of 
bishops, United States Minister Conger, and 
other well-known men. Eare among women 
was her gift of swaying an audience by the 
power of speech. An enthusiasm like that of 



198 Under Marching Orders 

a political meeting was usually produced by 
her message and her own animated self. On 
one occasion, when she was expected to speak 
and word was brought to the assembled 
people that she was sick and unable to be 
present, they received the announcement with 
tears of regret. There were those who were 
willing to go one hundred miles to hear her 
story, which always possessed variety and 
freshness of appeal. On one of her trips she 
was accompanied by her sister, who, at each 
of nine conventions, listened to incidents she 
had never heard before. 

Thus, in the United States as in China, Mrs. 
Gamewell was disclosing a vision of high, 
noble living to thousands of people. In the 
home of a man and woman newly married, 
was fastened on the wall a newspaper print, 
whose black lines indistinctly portrayed a 
woman's face. Some one entered the home 
who recognized the face and inquired of the 
bride if she too knew Mrs. Gamewell. "No," 
was the reply, "I have simply heard her 
speak, but I have felt the power of her per- 
sonality; and I want her ideals to dominate 
my home. That I may not forget, I keep her 
picture before me." 



A New World 199 

Still another tribute was paid Mrs. Game- 
well in the midst of equally unexpected sur- 
roundings. It was one winter evening in 
1902, at a wedding where many of the guests 
were naval officers. Their full-dress uni- 
forms, lustrous with gold lace, made a strik- 
ing picture as they moved in and out among 
the throng. A young officer, having been pre- 
sented at his own request to a certain lady, 
began at once an eager conversation to which 
she responded with interest. "I am delighted 
to meet you here," he said, "for your hus- 
band tells me that you are a friend of Mrs. 
Gamewell, the missionary who was in Peking 
during the Boxer uprising." As she replied 
affirmatively he continued: "I was there also 
in command of the marines who were ordered 
up from the Asiatic squadron to guard the 
American Legation until the allies arrived. 
I have no words at my disposal which can 
convey to you just what Mrs. Gamewell meant 
to our boys at that time. From morning until 
night and from night until morning, con- 
fronting a fate beside which death itself as- 
sumed the guise of a friend, that white-faced 
little heroine never wavered. It seemed as 
if she were omnipresent, and her bright, ready 



200 Under Marching Orders 

smile and cheery words helped us more than 
she ever knew. I know fourteen of us men 
in the service who will salute all the mission- 
aries with respect as long as we live, in mem- 
ory of that one frail woman with a hero's 
heart. ' ' It was Captain Hall, now advanced 
to the rank of Major, who could not miss this 
opportunity of doing honor to the soldiers' 
friend. 

Even as he spoke his appreciation of Mrs. 
Gamewell, she herself was beginning to pay 
the price exacted by those weeks of hard- 
ship. It was not alone the siege, but the sum 
of the years in China, which was gradually 
conquering her once splendid health. The 
girl who rode through the gates of Peking 
in 1872 had possessed abounding vigor, but 
the dust and general pollution of a wholly 
insanitary city had poisoned her system 
through and through. The wonder was that 
she had endured so long and worked so hard. 

As she felt the grip of physical weakness, 
the old zest of battle was upon her. With 
burning energy she set herself to work in all 
the ways her varied resources made possible. 
In the home in New Jersey which was ever 
ready to welcome her and her husband on 



A New World 201 

their return from conferences and travel, she 
spent day after day at her desk, writing. The 
Chautauqiian and other magazines published 
her lucid accounts of life in China. Letters 
by the score went forth to people, near and 
far, young and old, who had a claim upon her 
interest, and many were inspired to more 
earnest living because of the messages which 
came from that desk and that writer. In one 
letter was found this characteristic bit of 
description : ' ' On the whole, a tree is the most 
sympathetic object in nature, not so awfully 
set as the mountains, not so fickle and treach- 
erous as the sea, more substantial than the 
clouds, not so perishable as the grass and 
flowers — always there, steadfast and strong, 
with its shifting lights and shadows, soft sigh- 
ing or brisk tossing, or drenched brightness, 
seeming to enter into every mood of its 
friends. It sighs sympathy, whispers peace, 
murmurs comfort, waves refreshment, or 
shouts exhilaratingly, according to whether 
the breeze be gentle or high, whether the day 
be bright or dripping. ' ' 

Another letter carried this ringing chal- 
lenge: "To young people amid careless life, 
happy life, times of unrest and aspiration, 



202 Under Marching Orders 

longings and yearnings unutterable stir with- 
in. Trust the stirring within. It is the voice 
of God. You may not interpret into action 
just as God intends, but trust and go ahead. 
God will see that you go right. You may 
hear a voice saying, i Come up higher, higher, 
to the heights,' and you see looming before 
you magnificent heights, and it seems to you 
all glorious. You seek the way up and find 
that you only go down. A voice says, ' Come 
up.' Your footsteps seem forced downward. 
It seems as if the voice were of the imagina- 
tion, and that God mocks. Trust, if for no 
other reason than because for you there is 
no other better than that same voice. Trust, 
even though the way seem down. Trust, and 
God will take you over what will prove to be 
a valley between you and the real upward 
way — perhaps the valley of humiliation which 
skirts the mountains of God. Trust, and you 
shall stand upon heights glorious with the 
glory of God, so high above your own inter- 
pretation of God's will and ways that your 
own interpretation has sunk out of sight in 
the prospect that spreads below, as the hills 
are hidden and are lost from the mountain- 
top." 



A New World 203 

Constantly Mrs. GamewelPs thoughts 
reached out to those whom she had left be- 
hind in China and she made eager plans to 
go back as soon as her health would allow. 
Letters, rich with her unfailing optimism, 
traveled to the compound in Peking, where 
at the end of the siege the ' ' giant tree ' ' alone 
survived the ravage of the Boxers, but where 
now the work of rebuilding was going on with 
quickened zeal. In distant villages in the 
provinces of Chih-li and Shan-tung, Bible 
women and girl graduates of the Peking 
school knew that the woman who had spoken 
to their very souls still remembered and 
cared. It was for them, these Chinese women 
and girls, that her life had been poured out 
in service. 

In the fall of 1906, Mrs. Gamewell came 
again to the home in New Jersey, and with 
the same courage with which she had taken 
up her work years before, she now laid it 
down. For as many weeks as she had lived 
behind the walls of the British Legation, she 
lay helpless in the room where sickness, in- 
stead of shot and shell, held her captive. And 
just as she had gone out from Peking into 
the freedom of the country she called home, 



204 Under Marching Orders 

her real self, her shining, unconquerable 
spirit, passed on to that country of perfect 
freedom, where new work, new joy, and eter- 
nal vigor awaited her in the visible presence 
of her Christ ; into that new world which lies 
outside the range of our sight but not beyond 
the reach of our love. 

In a little Chinese village in the province 
of Shan-tung, within a family courtyard, an 
outdoor school has already begun its morn- 
ing session. Adobe houses enclose the court 
on three sides, but the sunshine streams in 
unhindered through the opening at the south. 
Twelve girls, ranging in age from five to ten 
years, form an irregular semicircle about the 
teacher, sitting on broad, flat stones, on in- 
verted tubs and baskets, upon any of the 
familiar household objects which can be 
made to serve as a school bench. Twelve 
little wadded figures sway back and forth, or 
from side to side, keeping time to the rhythm 
of the Chinese characters which they are 
studying aloud, each in a voice keyed to a 
different pitch. One girl has practised her 
lesson to her satisfaction, and comes forward 
to recite. With her back turned upon the 



A New World 205 

teacher, she races through the lesson like a 
swift runner to a goal. Notwithstanding the 
speed of delivery, the teacher is quick to 
follow and detect the accuracy, and to com- 
mend the pupil for her perfect recitation. 
With beaming face the child returns to her 
seat, and applies herself to the newly- 
assigned task. A wee girl, scarcely more than 
a baby, leans against the teacher's knee, and 
timidly recites her lesson, while her older 
sister stands by her side, listening with intent 
face, as if the small sister's success were of 
greater moment than her own. By and by 
two mothers, mere girls in years, but old 
with care, come to visit school, finding the 
tidy court a restful change from their 
crowded, disorderly homes. As they enter, 
the twelve pupils rise, and one by one give 
the guests a ctiing-an (courtesy). An older 
girl strays in from the street, and half- 
bewildered, half-wistful, watches the exer- 
cises of the school, which are so entirely 
strange to her. The shoe upon which she is 
supposed to work lies forgotten in her hands, 
as she thinks new, unfamiliar thoughts. She 
had not heard early enough of the religion 
which brings enlightenment to the despised 



206 Under Marching Orders 

girl, and thus her childhood chance of study 
had gone. 

But how did this Christian school find its 
existence in the distant pagan village, and 
who is the dignified, intelligent-faced teacher ? 
Its history traces directly back through the 
years to the little struggling school for girls 
which Mary Porter opened in the compound 
in Peking, in 1872. In the life of Clara Wang, 
one of the first pupils in that school, there 
was born a great purpose because of contact 
with the young American teacher. After her 
marriage she went back to her home in An- 
chia-chuang, determined to live out her 
Christian ideals of womanhood at whatever 
cost. Upon Mrs. Gamewell's suggestion, she 
taught a girls ' boarding school, and later the 
day-school on her own door-steps. Already 
some of her pupils, even her daughter, have 
become teachers, and many others have mar- 
ried and are creating real Christian homes in 
the midst of ignorant heathen villages. Thus 
scores, hundreds of lives have been made 
strong and useful, because one woman dared 
be true to her dream of duty, giving up home 
and ease to work for these Chinese girls. 

Even in the remote inland city of Chung- 




The Mary Porter Gamewell School for Girls, Peking 




Girls of the Mary Porter Gamewell School (Upper Row) 



A New World 207 

ch'ing, reached by the long, perilous trail of 
the Yang-tzu, this one life has left its impress. 
The work which was shattered and broken 
that July night in 1886, was reestablished a 
year or two later and has grown in power 
and beauty from year to year. The property 
on the great road, destroyed by the mob, is 
now replaced by a splendid hospital building, 
scarcely surpassed in China for size and 
equipment, by a boys' school, a Bible train- 
ing school, a church, and the homes in which 
dwell the seventeen missionaries from Amer- 
ica. The girls' boarding-school in which 
Mrs. Game well taught has been removed to 
Ch'eng-tu, the capital city, because it has 
larger opportunity there for reaching the 
girls of the province. There are over one 
thousand Christians in the district of which 
Chung-ch'ing is the center, and everywhere 
the people welcome the foreigner whom once 
they scorned and derided. 

But what of Peking, the mysterious old 
walled city, still dusty and dirty, but yet alive, 
alert, progressive, and just as attractive as 
ever? It was in the heart of its varied activ- 
ity, within the compound in Filial Piety Lane, 
that Mrs. Gamewell spent almost half the 



£08 Under Marching Orders 

years of her life. What is the harvest of 
those years of toil, the ingathering from that 
life of radiant purpose? On the train from 
Tientsin a group of Chinese girls are journey- 
ing toward Peking, laughing and chatting 
together exactly like boarding-school girls in 
America returning for the fall term. These 
are the girls of New China on their way to 
the Peking Girls ' School, traveling by a west- 
ern railway instead of the Oriental wheel- 
barrow of the days of Sarah Wang, and in 
companies of fifty, sixty, or one hundred, 
instead of the shy, solitary girl who ventured 
in from the streets, in 1872. At the Peking 
station in the Southern City, they leave 
the train, and step into jinrikishas, or 
possibly Peking carts, to be borne with 
careless ease through the Hata gate, along 
the broad street to the compound of the 
Methodist mission. Passing through the 
great gate and hastening along the central 
highway in sight of the homes of the mission- 
aries, the new Asbury Church, the hospital 
and the boys' school, they pause in front of 
a three-storied brick building — the Mary 
Porter Gamewell School. Two hundred and 
forty-four girl students are reassembling for 



A New World 209 

the new year of school and they include in 
their number all classes of society, even the 
great-great-niece of Li Hung-chang, the most 
renowned statesman China has yet produced. 
The school has recently been made a part of 
the North China Educational Union, which 
means that it has a recognized academic 
standing, and its graduates can go straight 
on to college and medical school. 

The school which Mary Porter Gamewell 
founded in those pioneer years, has been 
the forerunner of a great educational move- 
ment for girls, promoted by the Chinese 
government itself. After the empress dow- 
ager returned to the Dragon Throne, in the 
fall of 1900, and entered upon her career of 
reform, schools for girls were established 
in all parts of the royal province, in each of 
which the unbinding of the feet was the con- 
dition of entrance. Thus that daring decision 
of the two young women in the sitting-room 
of the "Long Home" thirty-seven years ago 
has led directly to an effort among the 
Chinese themselves for the freedom of 
women. Schools, schools, everywhere, pro- 
claim the new day in China. In a single 
province the viceroy founded over five thou- 



210 Under Marching Orders 

sand schools for boys and girls within the 
space of a few years ! Teachers ! Who shall 
say teachers are not needed for this awaken- 
ing multitude of pupils ? In one year fifteen 
thousand young men were studying in Japan, 
and four or five thousand more were students 
in the universities of Europe and America. 

The dowager empress is no longer the 
dominant figure in Chinese affairs. In the 
fall of 1908 there were two sudden and inex- 
plicable deaths in the palace within the For- 
bidden City, and the empress dowager and 
the deposed emperor, Kuang Hsu, lay in 
royal state, while their nation donned the 
white garb of mourning. To-day, Prince 
Chun, the new regent and older brother of 
Kuang Hsu, leads along the broad road of 
progress and enlightenment. 

When ten thousand Chinese Christians laid 
down their lives rather than deny their Lord, 
the people wonderingly asked: "What is this 
religion for which men are ready to die?" 
Thus hosts of Chinese faces are turned in- 
quiringly and even wistfully toward the faith 
which has made men ready to die for the 
sake of the love they bear their Leader. No 
wonder that those who know China and who 



A New World 211 

know the power of Jesus Christ declare that 
the opportunity to-day is the greatest which 
has been offered to the Christian Church 
since the days of Martin Luther, if not since 
the lifetime of the Apostle Paul. 

The China of this first decade of the twen- 
tieth century is literally a new world; "old 
things are passed away : behold, all things are 
become new." And Mary Porter Gamewell 
stands in the front rank of those men and 
women who have helped bring about this 
resurrection day in the most ancient empire 
of the world. 



INDEX 



213 



INDEX 



Alleghany Mountains, 19 

Allied Forces, 145, 184 

Amazon River, 74 

Ament, Dr., 181 

America, 210 

American Bible Society, 121 

American, 

missionaries, 37, 48, 69, 92, 

103, 207; 
soldiers, see United States, 

military forces during 

siege of Peking 
Americans, 175 
Ancestral, tablets, 63; 

worship, 63 
An-chia-chuang, 61, 62, 65, 

206 
Arsenal on Rock Island, near 

Davenport, 21 
Asbury Church, Peking, 109, 

133, 159, 208 

Babies, burial of Chinese, 46; 
putting in door of mis- 
sion compound, 79, 80 
Barricades, 134, 135, 167- 

171, 178, 179 
"Betsey," international can- 
non, 181 
Bible, 

promises of during siege, 

184; 
training school, 207; 
women, 53, 73, 102, 203 



Bicycle used by Mr. Game- 
well, 166 
Birds, Chinese, 46, 47 
Boats, Chinese, 10, 58, 59, 75, 

76 
Boxers, the, 126-133, 136- 

139, 148, 183, 197, 203; 
united with imperial 

troops, 145, 155 
Boys' schools, 38, 102, 207, 

208 
Bridge of Boats, 11, 65 
British, consuls at Chung- 

ch'ing and Tientsin, 91, 

92, 185; 
Legation at Peking, place 

of refuge during siege, 

156-190; 
military forces during siege 

of Peking, 179, 184, 

189 
Brown, Miss Maria, 30, 33, 

48; 
married to the Rev. George 

R. Davis, 72 
Buddhist temples, 122, 126 
Bullets, shells, and solid shot 

during siege, 179, 180, 

190 

Camel trains, 33, 114 
Camps of Union soldiers, near 

Davenport, 21 
Canada, 28, 74 
215 



216 



Index 



Cards, as an attraction to 
Peking Sunday-school, 
103-105 
Carts, Chinese, 13, 51-53, 

114, 157, 159 
Charms used by Boxers, 127 
Chautauquan, the, 201 
Ch'eng-tu, 207 
Chicago and Rock Island 

Railroad, 20 
Chih-li, 53, 203 
Ch'in or Great Pure Dy- 
nasty, 116 
China, 3, 74; 

acts with Boxers to de- 
stroy foreigners, 148; 
first experiences in, 3-15; 
relative population of, 28; 
wonderful changes in, 
through mission influ- 
ence, 209-211 
China in Convulsion, xi 
"China's Girdle," 74 
"China's Sorrow," 58 
Chinese, 

ambassador in Washing- 
ton, 183; 
birds, 46, 47; 
carts, 13, 51-53; 
Christians, see Christians, 

Chinese; 
City, in Peking, 177; 
curiosity concerning Occi- 
dental people, 11, 12; 
fear of foreigners harm- 
ing their children, 38, 45, 
46; 
house-boats, 10; 



imperial troops used 
against foreigners, 148, 
155, 160-187; 
rivers, 8-10, 58; 
roads, 4; 
schools inspired by mission 

work, 209, 210; 
students in Japan, Europe, 
and America, 210 
Ch'iu-fu, 64, 65 
Cho-chou, 128 
Christ, see Jesus Christ 
Christians, Chinese, 56, 57, 
63; 
in siege of Peking, x, 135- 
138, 146-160, 184, 189, 
190; 
martyrs among, 128, 138, 
197, 210 
Chun, Prince, 210 
Chung-ch'ing, 72-75, 78, 83, 

91-97, 207 
Civil War, 20-23, 146, 180 
Coleridge, S. T., 114 
Committees created for siege 

days, 164 
Compounds, mission, 33, 37, 

45, 65, 69, 71, 133-150 
Confucianism, 62, 92 
Confucius, 64 

Conger, E. H., 135, 137, 148, 
197; 
letters from, 144, 191 ; 
Washington cablegram, 
183, 184 
Conger, Mrs., 171 
Congregational mission at 
T'ung-chou, 136 



Index 



217 



Cornell University, 70 
Cushman, Miss Clara M., xi 

Davenport, Iowa, 20-29 
Davis, Rev. George R., 72 
Diffendorfer, Mr. R. E., xi 
Donkeys, riding of, 3-5 
Dragon, Festival, 85; 

Throne, 116, 209 
Dust, evil of in China, 5, 12, 
14, 37, 46 

Empress dowager, 116-129, 
209, 210; 
daughter of a Manchu 

soldier, 117; 
early becomes empress, 117; 
later is sole regent, 118; 
receives gift of New Testa- 
ment, 121; 
supplants Kuang Hsu, 124; 
tries to destroy the for- 
eigners, 125, 126,129,175; 
very sudden death, 210 
Europe, 210 
Europeans, 175, 189 

"Face," 90 

Filial Piety Lane, 37, 47, 65, 

105, 150 
Fire, destructive use of by 
Chinese in siege, 138, 
139, 176, 177 
Flags, of China, ix, x; 
of Europe, 145; 
of Great Britain, 189; 
of Japan, 145; 
of the Church, ix, x, xii; 



of United States, ix, x, 

145, 195 
Foochow, 9 
Food and grain found in 

Legation Street, 165, 166 
Foot-binding, not permitted 

in Peking girls' school, 

34, 35; 

influence of the decision, 

35, 36, 41-44, 209 
Forbidden City, 114, 115, 175, 

210 
"Foreign devils," expression 

used by Chinese, 38, 46, 

59, 84, 139 
Foreigners, danger and de- 
liverance of, in Peking, 

125-191 
Fortification work during 

siege, 133-135, 165-171 
French military forces during 

siege of Peking, 184 
Fu, the, see Su Wang Fu, the 

Gamewell, Frank D., x, 70, 

84, 85, 109, 137, 144, 

163, 188; 
education, 70, 71; 
enters the China field, 71 ; 
marriage, 72; 
proceeds to Chung-ch'ing 

and works in West 

China, 72-96; 
riot compels retirement 

from West China, 97; 
service in home field and 

Peking University, 101, 

102; 



218 



Index 



superintends fortifications 
during siege of Peking, 
135, 164-169; 

tributes from Minister Con- 
ger and General Gaselee, 
191; 

voyage to the United 
States, 192 
Gamewell, John M., 70 
Gamewell, Mary Porter, x, 
80, 83, 123, 135, 138, 
146, 162, 163, 180, 188; 

childhood and education, 
19-27; 

conversion, 26; 

Grandview Academy, 
teaching, 27, 28; 

heeds call to mission work, 

28, 29; 

journey to Peking, 3-15, 

29, 30; map, 7; 
letters, 48, 78, 84, 104, 106- 

109, 201-203; 

main service as a mission- 
ary teacher, 38; 

makes courageous her pu- 
pils and Bible women, 
39-44; 

marriage to Frank D. 
Gamewell and journey to 
West China, 72; 

memorial school, see Mary 
Porter Gamewell School; 

notes and exposes the dis- 
honesty of the builders, 
44, 45; 

prefers city wall for her 
walks, 46, 47; 



record trip to An-chia- 
chuang, 51-65; map, 61; 

risks life to restrain the 
mob at Chung-ch'ing, 
85-91; 

return visit to United 
States, 97-102; 

secures by letter funds for 
new Peking church, 106- 
110; 

Sunday-school work, 28, 
103-110; 

sympathy and thoughtful 
service during siege days, 
140-142, 151, 170-172, 
186, 189, 190, 199, 200; 

uniforms made for sol- 
diers, 142-144; 

varied activity in home 
field, 192-203; 

work finished, promotion, 
and enduring influence, 
203-211 
Gaselee, General, 191 
Gates, of city, 13, 14, 114, 
138-140; 

of compound, 37, 47, 135, 
141, 150; 

of British Legation, 167, 
168 
German military forces dur- 
ing siege of Peking, 184 
Girls, American, 19-26; 

Chinese, 28, 35-38 
Girls' schools, in Peking, 34, 
35,38,39,147,208; 

in Shan-tung, 204-206; 

in West China, 83, 207 



Index 



219 



Glass, Mrs. Charles D., x 

God, 28, 43; 

the real protection in the 
siege, 156, 182, 191 

Golden Gate, the, 30, 192 

Grandview Academy, 27 

Grant, Ulysses S., 26 

Great Wall, 137 

Greek Church, 171 

Greenville, time of, 56 

Gun, taken from Mrs. Game- 
well at Chung-ch'ing, 87- 
90 

Gymnastic apparatus, 24 

Hall, Captain, 135, 140, 150, 

200 
Hankow, 75 
Hanlin library, 176 
Hata gate, Peking, 5, 150, 208 
Homesickness, 12, 48 
Hospital, mission, 83, 84; 
temporary, during siege, 
182 
House-boats, 10 
Houses, Chinese, 36, 79 
Hsien Feng, 117 
Hsing-chi, 54 
Hui An, 39, 40 
Hu-nan, 165 

Hymns sung, by Chinese 
Christians, 56, 57; 
by those besieged in Pe- 
king, 147, 183 

I'chang, 75-78, 97 
Imperial City, 113, 181 
Inland Sea, 8 



Italian military forces during 
siege of Peking, 158, 181 

James, Prof., 156 
Japan, 8 
Japanese, 175; 

consul at Tientsin, 184; 
military forces during 
siege of Peking, 158, 182, 
184; 
minister in Peking, 184 
Jesus Christ, 26, 28, 35, 43, 
57, 62, 64, 80, 204, 210, 
211 
Jewell, Mrs., 160 
Jewett, Miss Sophie, xi 
Jinrikishas, 171, 208 

Kalgan, 137 

Kang or bed, 55 

Ketteler, Baron von, 148, 

149 
Kipling, Mr., 123 
Kuang Hsu, 118-124; 

love of new things, 119, 

120; 
many progressive steps, 

120-122; 
obtains copy of Bible, 121; 
sudden death, 210 
Kublai Khan, 114 

Lang-fang, 137 
Lee, Robert E., 26 
Legation, Chapel, 158, 160, 

182; 
Street, 150, 151, 160, 165, 

167 



220 



Index 



Life of Mary Porter Game- 
well, xi 
Li Hung-chang, 209 
Lincoln, Abraham, 22, 26 
Lion, of cast iron, 55 
London Times, the, 148 
"Long Home," the residence 
of Mary Porter in Pe- 
king, 33, 35, 36, 48, 209 

MacDonald, Lady, 162, 163, 

168, 169 
MacDonald, Sir Claude, 164, 

176, 185, 189; 
gives Mr. Gamewell full 

authority in fortifying 

Legation, 164 
Machine-gun, sound of, 188 
Magistrates, Chinese, 88-97 
Manchu Tartars, the royal 

family of China, 116 
Mary Porter Gamewell 

School, 208 
McCalla, Captain, 137, 145, 

163 
Meng-ts'un, 55 
Methodist, mission, 136, 146, 

208; 
street chapel destroyed, 138 
Meyers, Captain, 178, 179 
Mills for grinding grain in 

siege, 165 
Mission work, 

call to, 28, 29, 71, 192; 
heroism of, 30, 53, 80, 85- 

91, 93, 95-97, 141, 147, 

150, 151, 163, 180, 182, 

199, 200; 



value of, 38-48, 101-110, 
191-211 
Mississippi River, 20, 74; 

first bridge across, 20 
Mitchell, American gunner, 

181 
Mongolians, 114 
Mongol Market, 168 
Moon-gate, the, 37 
Morrison, Dr., 148, 156 
Mule litters, 114 

Nagasaki, Japan, 192 

Nanking, 75 

New England, 30, 103 

New Jersey, 200, 203 

New York, 8, 57 

North China Educational 

Union, 209 
Northrup, Miss Elizabeth, xi 

Odors, unpleasant, in Pe- 
king, 46 

Packard, Mrs. M. C, xi 
Palace buildings and courts, 

Peking, 116, 175, 210 
Pao-ting fu, 128 
Pei Ho, the, 8, 9, 145 
Peking, 5, 12-15, 29, 33, 36, 
46, 51, 65, 71, 97, 102,' 
113-116; 
diagram of, 115; 
girls' school in, 34, 35, 38- 

41,46, 208, 209; 
remote from water and 

walled, 155; 
siege of, see Siege of 
Peking 



Index 



221 



Pigeons, whistles attached 

to, 47 
Polytechnic Institute, Troy, 

New York, 70 
Porter, Mary, see Gamewell, 

Mary Porter 
Prayer, 27, 39, 40, 48, 56, 

147, 170 

Railway from Tientsin to 
Peking, 120, 155 

Rivers, Chinese, features of, 
9-11, 58, 74 

Roman Catholic, cathedrals 
destroyed at Chung- 
ch'ing and Peking, 92, 
138; 
Christians in siege of Pe- 
king, 156, 157 

Russian military forces dur- 
ing siege of Peking, 179, 
184 

Sand-bags for fortification 

work, 169-171 
San Francisco, 29 
Schools, mission, 34, 35, 38, 

39, see also Girls' schools 
Sedan-chairs, 93-97, 114 
Shang-chia-chai, 56 
Shanghai, 8, 9, 74 
Shan-tung, 41, 42, 53, 60, 65, 

126, 203, 204 
Sharpshooters, Chinese, 178, 

180 
Sherman, William T., 26 
Siege of Peking, x, xi, 151- 

191 



Smith, Arthur H., xi, 161, 
181 

Songs, at Davenport, 22; 
by Chinese children, 110; 
during siege of Peking, 186 

Souls, Chinese belief concern- 
ing, 63 

South America, 74 

Squires, Mrs., 157 

St. Lawrence River, 74 

Sunday-school in Peking, 
103-110 

Su, Prince, 156 

Su Wang Fu, the, 156-160, 
168 

Taku, 144, 155; 

forts taken, 144, 145 
Tartar city, 113-116, 177 
Temples, 115, 139 
Tibet, 58, 73, 74 
Tientsin, 8-10, 54, 104, 144, 

148, 155, 184, 185, 192 
Trackers on the Yang-tzu, 

77 
Trees not easily seen in 

Chinese cities, 47 
Ts'ang-chou, 55 
T'ungChih, 117 
Tuttle, Dr., xi 
T'ung-chou, 5, 10, 192 
Tzu Hsi, 118-124, see also 

Empress dowager 

United States, 3, 28, 57, 74, 
97, 195; 
Legation, 144, 157, 177, 
199; 



222 



Index 



military forces during 
siege of Peking, 135, 136, 
178, 179, 184, 189; 

minister in Peking, 135, 
see also Conger , E. H.; 

treatment of Chinese, 92 
University of Peking, 122 

Walls, of Chinese cities, 12, 
14, 46, 47, 78, 79, 187; 
of compounds, 37, 79; 
of houses, 14, 15, 47; 
of legations, 162, 167, 176- 
180, 189 
Wang, Clara and Sarah, 40- 
44, 62, 206, 208; 
Mrs., 41, 42, 53, 61-65, 102 
War-songs, 22, 186 



Wellesley College, xi 

Wells in British Legation, 166 

West China mission work, 73, 
83, 84, 206, 207 

Wheelbarrows, Chinese use 
of, 4, 114; 
Mrs. Wang's journey, 41 

Women, American, at Daven- 
port in war times, 22, 23; 
record trip as missionaries 
in China, 51-53 

Women, Chinese, 41, 42, 52 

Yamen of magistrate, 93-97 
Yang Ssu, 65 
Yang-tzu, the, 74-78 
Yellow River, 58, 65 
Yokohama Bay, 8 



Forward Mission Study Courses 



" Anywhere, provided it be forward." — David Living- 
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Prepared under the direction of the 
YOUNG PEOPLE'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

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Editorial Committee: T. H. P. Sailer, Chairman, 
A. E. Armstrong, T. B. Ray, H. B. Grose, S. Earl Tay- 
lor, J. E. McAfee, C. R. Watson, John W. Wood, L. B. 
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The forward mission study courses are an outgrowth of 
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The aim is to publish a series of text-books covering 
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will comprise perhaps as many as forty text-books. 

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x. The Price of Africa. (Biographical.) By S. Earl 
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5. Heroes of the Cross in America. Home Missions. 
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8. Aliens or Americans? A study of Immigration. 
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9. The Uplift of China. A study of China. By 
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14. South America: Its Missionary Problems. A 
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